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UNIVCMITY  or 

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QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DAY 


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ESSAYS    OX 


QUESTIONS    OF    THE    DAY 


POLITICAL   AND    SOCIAL 


BY 


GOLDWIN   SMITH,   D.C.L. 

AUTHOR   OF    "the    UNITED   STATES:    AN   OUTLINE   OF   POLITICAL 

HISTORY,"    AND    "CANADA    AND   THE   CANADIAN 

QUESTION  " 


SECOND   EDITION,   REVISED 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPAI^Y 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1897 

All  rights  i-eserved 


Copyright,  1893, 
By  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  November,  1893.      Revised 
edition  printed  August,  1894;  August,  1897. 


Xortoooti  ^rrss : 

J.  S.  Gushing-  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith. 

Boston,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE   TO   REVISED    EDITION. 

These  Essays  are  the  outcome  of  discussions  in  which  the 
writer  has  been  engaged  on  the  several  questions,  and  are 
partly  drawn  from  papers  contributed  by  him  to  different 
periodicals. 

Of  the  subjects  some  are  specially  British,  though  not  with- 
out interest  for  a  citizen  of  the  United  States;  others  are 
common  to  both  countries. 

Some  service  may  be  done  by  bringing  an  important  question 
into  focus,  even  when  the  reader  does  not  agree  witl  the 
opinions  of  the  writer. 

The  opinions  of  the  present  writer  are  those  of  a  Liberal  of 
the  old  school,  as  yet  unconverted  to  State  Socialism,  who  still 
looks  for  further  improvement,  not  to  increased  interference 
of  government,  but  to  individual  effort,  free  association,  and 
the  same  agencies,  moral,  intellectual,  and  economical,  which 
have  brought  us  thus  far,  and  one  of  which,  science,  is  now 
operating  with  immensely  increased  power;  deeming  it  the 
function  of  government  to  protect  these  agencies,  not  to  super- 
sede them.  A  writer  of  this  school  can  have  no  panacea  or 
nostrum  to  offer;  and  when  a  nostrum  or  panacea  is  offered, 
he  will  necessarily  be  found  rather  on  the  critical  side.  He 
will  look  for  improvement,  not  for  regeneration;  expect 
improvement  still  to  bo,  as  it  has  been,  gradual;  and  hope 
much  from  steady,  calm,  and  harmonious  effort,  little  from 
violence  or  revolution.      \n  his  estimation  the  clearest  gain 

V 


vi  PREFACE   TO   REVISED   EDITION. 

reaped  by  the    world   from    tlie   political   struggles    through 
,  which  it  has  been  going,  amidst  much  that  is  equivocal  or 
still  on  trial,  will  be  liberty  of  opinion. 

In  America  rather  than  in  England  an  old  English  Liberal 
now  finds  his  political  home.  In  England  that  which  was  the 
Liberal  party  is  becoming  the  party  of  State  Socialism,  or,  as 
Mr.  Cleveland  calls  it,  of  Paternalism,  though  it  retains  the 
name,  to  which,  as  etymology  itself  protests,  only  those  who 
have  faith  in  liberty  are  entitled.  America,  though  now  invaded 
by  State  Socialism,  is  still  a  land  of  liberty  regulated  and  pro- 
tected by  law,  in  which  every  man  is  free  to  do  his  best  for 
himself,  which  as  a  general  rule  he  can  hardly  do  without 
also  doing  what  is  best  for  the  commonwealth. 

The  essay  which  has  required  most  revision  is  that  on  the 
Political  Crisis  in  England.  The  scene  shifts  rapidly  on  the 
English  stage,  while  the  nation  is  apparently  drifting  towards 
socialistic  revolution.  In  the  question  whether  the  House  of 
Lords  shall  be  abolished,  reduced  to  impotence,  or  so  reorgan- 
ised as  to  make  it,  like  the  American  Senate,  a  conservative 
institution,  interest  centres.  If  the  Second  Chamber  falls, 
there  is  apparently  nothing  between  the  nation  and  revolu- 
tion. Already,  the  Lords  having  renounced  amendment  of  the 
Budget,  there  is  no  bar  to  socialistic  confiscation. 

Since  this  essay  on  the  Political  Crisis  in  England  was  writ- 
ten and  a  comparison  was  incidentally  drawn  in  it  between  the 
industrial  situation  in  England  and  that  in  the  United  States 
to  the  advantage  of  the  latter,  we  have  had  in  the  United 
States  a  sudden  outburst  of  industrial  war.  When  the  organi- 
sation of  the  Knights  of  Labour,  at  one  time  so  much  dreaded, 
had  lost  its  force,  general  peace  seemed  to  have  been  pretty 
well  assured.     This  eruption  is  not  normal,  but  is  the  conse- 


PKEFACE   TO    REVISED   EDITION.  vii 

quence  of  the  financial  crisis  which  has  paralysed  commerce, 
deranged  industry,  reduced  wages,  and  thrown  many  altogether 
out  of  employment,  especially  in  congested  centres  of  labour, 
such  as  California  and  Chicago,  at  the  latter  of  which  much 
labour  had  been  collected,  and  discharged,  by  the  World's 
Fair.  The  violence  Avas  foreign.  The  native  American  is 
faithful  to  law.  The  apparent  dimensions  of  the  disturbance 
were  magnified  by  the  extent  of  its  influence. 

We  have  had  a  lesson,  however,  on  the  character  of  a  Trade- 
Union  system,  which  placed  national  commerce,  the  subsistence 
of  myriads,  and  the  peace  of  society  at  the  mercy  of  a  labour 
despot  whose  personal  game  is  believed  to  have  had  as  much 
to  do  with  the  catastrophe  as  the  Pullman  quarrel.  The 
conflict  between  employer  and  employed  has  given  birth  to  a 
set  of  adventurers  wlio  subsist  by  industrial  war  and  exult 
when  widespread  havoc  makes  the  community  tremble  at  their 
power. 

The  attention  of  politicians  of  the  regular  parties,  as  they 
are  termed,  is  called  to  the  growth  of  another  party,  not 
regular  or  indeed  political,  whose  single  aim  it  is  to  aggrandise 
the  wage-earning  class,  or  that  part  of  it  Avhicli  is  capable  of 
organisation,  at  the  expense  of  other  classes,  and  which,  as  its 
recent  operations  show,  cares  much  for  its  own  interest  and 
very  little  for  the  interest  of  the  community  at  large.  What 
will  be  the  effect  of  this  intrusive  power  on  politics  and  politi- 
cal combinations?  Will  good  citizens  find  it  safe  any  longer 
to  divide  themselves  on  the  old  party  lines,  when,  by  their 
division,  they  will  probably  bring  about  the  triumph  of  the 
common  enemy?  If  party  politicians  can  tliink  of  anything 
beyond  the  immediate  game,  this  crisis  affords  them  matter 
for  reflection. 


viii  PREFACE   TO   REVISED   EDITION. 

It  does  not  seem  that  the  Pullman  strike  was  justified.  The 
Company  explained  the  situation  to  its  men.  It  could  not  be 
expected  to  pay  more  for  the  work  than  the  goods  would  bring 
in  the  market.  Nor  in  such  a  case  was  there  any  room  for 
arbitration.  Had  the  men  been  simply  discharged,  there  would 
apparently  have  been  nothing  more  to  be  said. 

The  preachings  of  the  Socialists  and  Utopians  have  told; 
not  their  philosophies  or  their  visions,  to  which  the  mechanic 
pays  little  heed,  but  their  appeals  to  class  passions,  to  hatred 
of  the  rich,  and  to  the  lust  of  public  plunder.  Go  to  any 
socialistic  meeting,  however  respectable,  and  v/hatever  may  be 
the  formal  course  of  the  discussion,  you  will  find  that  the 
pervading  sentiment  is  the  same.  Men  who  ultimately  proved 
some  of  the  most  sanguinary  of  the  Prench  Terrorists  began 
with  sentiments  milder  than  those  to  which  Socialists,  Com- 
munists, and  Rationalisers  of  land,  to  say  nothing  of  Anar- 
chists, are  giving  utterance  now. 

Of  any  duties  of  the  workingman  towards  his  employer  or 
the  community,  of  any  power  which  he  has  of  improving  his 
own  lot  by  frugality,  temperance,  diligence,  self-restraint,  in 
the  organs  of  labour-agitation  there  is  seldom  a  word.  Em- 
ployers, good  and  bad,  are  alike  held  up  to  odium  under  the 
sweeping  designation  of  capital,  presented  as  the  "  spoilers  " 
who  prey  upon  the  "toilers,"  and  pointed  out  as  the  objects  of 
an  everlasting  war.  The  Pullman  establishment  must  have 
fed,  since  its  formation,  thousands ;  yet  it  is  treated  as  labour's 
foe,  and  wrecked  at  the  bidding  of  incendiaries  who  have  never 
given  any  one  an  ounce  of  bread. 

If  society  does  not  mean  to  go  under  the  Unionist  yoke, 
it  will  have  to  uphold  freedom  of  labour.  When  men  do  not 
choose  to  work  for  the  wages  offered  them  they  have  a  right. 


PREFACE   TO   REVISED    EDITION.  ix 

individually,  or  collectively  as  a  Union,  to  refuse.  But  they 
have  no  right  by  violence,  physical  or  moral,  to  prevent  other 
men  from  taking  the  work.  This  is  firm  ground,  if  the  com- 
munity will  be  true  to  itself.  Unfortunately,  the  community 
can  act  only  through  elective  legislators  who  tremble  at  the 
thought  of  the  labour  vote. 

The  action  of  President  Cleveland  was  applauded  by  all 
good  citizens.  Can  it  be  doubted  that  he  was  right  in  putting 
forth  the  military  force  of  the  commonwealth  to  control  an 
anarchical  usurper  who,  in  his  attempt  to  reduce  the  community 
to  submission  by  boycotting,  sympathetic  strikes,  tying  up 
railways,  stopi:)ing  the  mails,  intercepting  inter-State  com- 
merce, disorganising  the  industry  of  the  country,  and  threaten- 
ing to  deprive  large  districts  of  subsistence,  was  morally  levying 
war  against  the  United  States?  The  appeal  to  patriotism  was 
of  the  same  kind  as  in  1861,  though  not  so  loud  or  thrilling. 
Patriotism,  after  a  moment  of  stupor,  answered  the  appeal  and 
mounted  the  national  colours  against  the  anarchic  emblem. 
But  it  is  not,  as  in  1861,  at  its  highest  mark.  At  Wash- 
ington some  of  the  senators,  such  as  Senator  Davis  of  IVIinne- 
sota,  were  brave  and  true  to  the  country.  But  we  are  told 
that  it  was  impossible  to  get  an  expression  of  opinion  from 
any  member  of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives.  What  is  to  be 
expected  of  men  whose  political  life  at  the  next  election  will 
be  at  the  mercy  of  the  labour  vote?  It  was  fortunate  that  the 
President  was  in  his  second  term.  Yet  a  politician,  with  the 
wire-puller  at  his  ear,  often  errs  in  thinking  that  the  timid 
course  is  the  safest. 

There  is  no  use  in  blinking  the  fact  that  for  the  restoration 
of  order  and  the  prevention  of  further  havoc,  happily  at  small 
cost  of  blood,  the  country  was  mainly  indebted  to  the  discipline, 


X  PREFACE   TO   REVISED   EDITION. 

constancy,  and  courage  of  a  handful  of  regular  soldiers.  The 
day  has  not  yet  come  on  which  a  regular  army,  to  uphold 
public  order  in  the  last  resort,  will  no  longer  be  a  need  of  civ- 
ilisation. Militiamen  share  the  heat  of  the  political  or  social 
fray;  they  either  refuse  to  fire  or  fire  too  soon.  The  regular 
soldier  fires  at  the  word  of  command.  Nor  can  the  pattern 
of  authority  or  discipline  be  yet  spared. 

The  real  quarrel  was  perhaps  less  between  the  Company, 
as  makers  of  railway  cars,  and  their  workmen,  than  between 
the  Company,  as  owners  of  the  model  village  of  Pullman, 
and  their  tenants.  There  has  been  friction  in  Pullman. 
There  was  friction  in  its  English  counterpart,  Saltaire.  In- 
dependence kicks  against  paternal  rule,  however  benevolent, 
however  wise.  Pullman  and  Saltaire  are  partial  realisations, 
as  with  regard  to  Pullman  has  been  truly  remarked,  of  the 
Socialist's  ideal  community  as  it  is  presented  to  us  in  the 
reveries  of  Utopian  writers.  But  the  paternalism  of  Pullman 
and  Saltaire  is  far  less  meddling  than  that  of  the  socialistic 
community  would  be. 

We  must  not  forget  the  origin  of  these  troubles.  Dishonesty 
in  the  high  places  of  commerce,  illicit  speculation,  watering 
of  stocks,  want  of  integrity  in  the  management  of  railways, 
the  derangement  of  the  currency  for  a  political  purpose,  were 
sources  of  the  financial  crisis  from  which  industrial  disturb- 
ance flowed,  and  are  as  much  to  blame  as  the  malignant 
ambition  of  the  labour  demagogues  who  gave  the  word  for  the 
strike.  Nor  can  justice  pass  by  the  wealthy  men  of  America 
who,  heedless  of  the  responsibilities  of  wealth,  waste  it  on 
luxury  and  ostentation,  often  in  the  pleasure  cities  of  Europe. 
It  may  be  true  that  they  are  excluded  from  politics,  but 
politics  are  not  the  whole  of  life.     They  can  remain  at  their 


PREFACE   TO   REVISED    EDITION.  xi 

posts  and  do  their  social  duty.  If  they  will  not,  they  deserve 
to  be  plundered,  and  plundered  they  will  be. 

The  social  and  political  danger  caused  by  the  existence  of 
so  sharp  a  division  between  employer  and  employed  has  been 
brought  with  terrible  vividness  before  us  by  this  conflict. 
To  make  that  division  sharper  still  and  envenom  it  at  the 
same  time,  is  tlie  aim  of  the  labour  incendiary.  To  soften 
and,  if  possible,  efface  it,  must  be  the  aim  of  every  one  who 
desires  peace  with  justice.  Personal  intercourse  may  do 
something.  It  is  an  unfortunate  part  of  the  joint-stock 
system  that  a  company  is  not  personal  and  caji  present  only  a 
hard  commercial  aspect  to  its  workmen. 

State  Socialism  in  England  scoffs  at  the  American  system 
of  law  and  liberty  as  though  it  were  answerable  for  these 
disasters.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine  anything  less  chargeable 
to  the  account  of  a  system  of  law  and  liberty  than  the  tyranny 
of  a  labour  despot  and  his  organisation.  What  would  the 
State  Socialist  have  done  in  the  premises?  Would  he  have 
compelled  the  Pullman  Company,  by  legislation,  to  carry  on  a 
losing  trade  for  the  benefit  of  their  workmen?  When  English 
Socialism  says  that  America  is  fifty  years  behind  England  in 
the  treatment  of  the  labour  question,  what  does  it  mean? 
Whence  but  from  England  and  Europe  did  this  curse  of 
industrial  war,  with  its  Unionist  tyrannies,  its  strikes,  boy- 
cottings,  and  battenings  come?  When  the  Sheffield  outrages 
were  committed  there  had  hardly  been  such  a  thing  as  in- 
dustrial war  in  the  United  States.  In  striking  the  balance 
between  the  economical  situations  in  the  two  countries,  it  is 
not  to  be  forgotten  that  Ireland  has  been  now  for  a  series  of 
years  in  a  state  of  agrarian  rebellion. 

The  State  Socialists  of   the  British    Commons    the    other 


xii  PREFACE   TO   REVISED   EDITION. 

day  passed  a  Bill  limiting  the  hours  of  labour  in  mines. 
This  is  genuine  Socialism,  since  it  interferes  with  the  freedom 
of  male  adult  labour.  In  laws  protecting  women  and  children, 
there  is  nothing  really  socialistic.  A  government  may  regu- 
late the  hours  and  wages  of  its  own  workmen  as  it  pleases, 
because  the  taxpayer  finds  the  money.  But  private  employers, 
paying  the  wages  out  of  their  own  jDurse,  cannot  afford  to 
give  ten  hours'  pay  for  eight  hours'  work  unless  the  work  of 
the  eight  hours  is  really  equivalent  to  that  of  the  ten;  and 
the  workman  whose  eight  hours  are  not  as  good  as  his  ten 
hours,  that  is,  the  weaker  workman,  will  be  in  danger  of 
being  thrown  out  of  employment  altogether.  To  the  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  who  voted  for  the  Bill  this  can 
hardly  have  failed  to  be  apparent;  but  they  bowed  to  the 
labour  vote. 

It  seems  that  in  England  an  attempt  is  nov/  being  made  to 
fix  a  minimum  of  wages,  or,  as  it  is  styled,  a  living  wage. 
How  can  the  rate  of  wages  be  fixed  without  fixing  the  rate 
of  profits,  or  Avithout  fixing  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
wages  themselves? 

The  capitalists  organise,  equip,  and  guide  industry,  taking 
a  profit  which  statistics  seem  to  prove  is  not  on  the  average 
more  than  commensurate  with  the  service  rendered  and  the 
risk.  The  real  employer  is  the  purchaser,  who  cannot  be 
made,  in  the  long  run,  to  pay  for  the  goods  more  than  they 
are  worth  to  him.  Bury  this  fact  as  deep  in  ethical  eloquence 
as  you  will,  it  will  rise  again. 

Nor,  again,  can  any  State  Socialist  who  is  capable  of  reflec- 
tion fail  to  see  that  danger,  and  in  England  most  serious 
danger,  is  arising  from  the  growth  of  population  beyond  the 
demand  for  labour  and  the  means  of  subsistence;    or  to  be 


PREFACE   TO    REVISED   EDITION.  xiii 

aware  that  he  is  aggravating  that  danger  when  he  relieves 
parents,  at  the  expense  of  the  State,  of  the  duty  of  educating 
the  children  whom  they  bring  into  the  world,  and  proposes 
even  partly  to  relieve  them  of  the  duty  of  providing  the 
children  with  food.  The  case  is  made  worse  by  the  action  of 
Trade-Unions,  which,  rendering  employment  a  monopoly,  pre- 
vents the  fair  distribution  of  such  means  of  livelihood  as 
there  are. 

Since  the  essay  on  the  Empire  was  published,  an  inter- 
colonial confej-ence  has  been  sitting  at  Ottawa  in  the  interest 
of  Imperial  Federation,  or  at  least  of  imperial  union.  All 
that  good  dinners,  flowing  wine,  and  fraternal  eloquence  could 
do  to  annul  the  opposition  of  nature  has  been  done.  If  those 
genial  powers  can  prevail,  Canada  will  be  detached  from  the 
American  Continent,  and  attached  permanently  to  Europe, 
while  all  the  obstacles  to  the  secure  transit  of  trade  or  of 
armies  through  her  sub- Arctic  region,  with  its  wildernesses, 
mountain  ranges,  avalanches,  snow-blocks,  floods,  and  land- 
slips, will  disappear.  It  seems  that  nothing  was  said  about 
contribution  to  imperial  armaments,  which  is  the  root  of  the 
matter  and  the  test  of  sincerity  in  the  cause.  About  fiscal 
discrimination  something  was  said  but  not  well  received  by 
the  imperial  country.  Do  what  we  will,  the  North  American 
Continent  will  in  the  end  assert  its  unity  and  independence 
against  all  efforts  to  keep  it  divided,  and  a  part  of  it  depend- 
ent, in  the  imagined  interest  of  a  European  power. 

Since  the  essay  on  Woman  Suffrage  was  published,  the 
question  has  recently  come  to  a  head  in  New  York  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Convention  called  to  amend  the  State  constitu- 


xiv  PREFACE   TO   REVISED   EDITION. 

tion.  A  protest  lias  been  entered  against  the  change,  by  a 
number  of  ladies  sufficient  to  show  that  an  opponent  does  not 
speak  in  the  male  interest  alone.  Advocates  of  the  change 
have  appealed  to  domestic  sentiment  by  arguing  that  the 
spirit  of  the  home  will  find  it^  way  into  political  government 
through  the  female  vote.  Home  is  always  a  word  wherewith 
to  conjure;  but  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the  spirit  of  conjugal 
and  parental  affection  or  that  of  housewifery  can  be  infused 
into  the  action  of  a  political  government  any  more  than  into 
that  of  a  judiciary.  What  the  home  asks  of  government  is 
protection,  as  of  the  judiciary  it  asks  justice.  The  prospect 
of  political  and  social  danger  opened  by  the  recent  strikes 
will  hardly  dispose  the  legislators  or  the  people  of  New  York 
to  throw  wide  the  political  flood-gates  and  add  to  the  present 
elements  of  turmoil  the  inrush  of  the  whole  female  vote. 

In  the  essay  on  the  Irish  Question  the  writer,  whether  he 
has  erred  or  not,  has  been  guilty  of  no  "apostasy."  Thirty 
years  ago  in  a  little  work  called  "Irish  History  and  Irish 
Character,"  he  defended  the  Union  on  the  same  grounds  on 
which  he  defends  it  now;  though  parts  of  the  book  would 
now  require  alteration,  because,  since  it  was  written,  research 
has  thrown  new  lights  on  Irish  history  and  the  writer  has 
seen  the  political  action  of  the  Irish  in  the  United  States. 
With  John  Bright,  the  writer  was  always  for  the  Disestablish- 
ment of  the  Irish  State  Church,  and  for  every  measure  of 
justice  to  the  Irish  people.  With  John  Bright,  he  was 
always  for  the  Union.  If  he  ever  had  a  political  leader,  his 
1  !ader  was  John  Bright,  not  Mr.  Gladstone,  to  whom,  though 
very  grateful  for  some  reforms,  and  above  all  for  the  infusion 
of   moderation    into   foreign   and   imperial  policy,  he   never 


PREFACE    TO    REVISED   EDITION.  XV 

pinned  his  faith.  He  went  with  John  Bright  and  against 
Mr.  Gladstone  when  England  was  divided  in  sympathy  be- 
tween American  union  and  secession.  He  cannot  believe 
that  any  American  who  was  true  to  his  own  Union  will  think 
worse  of  Englishmen  for  being  true  to  theirs.  Nor  can  he 
believe  that  many  Americans  are  at  heart  very  angry  with 
those  who  would  dissuade  the  two  great  members  of  the  Eace 
of  Law  from  conspiring  in  their  mutual  jealousy  to  put  each 
other's  heads  under  the  feet  of  a  race  which  is  not  that  of 
law,  whatever  its  other  gifts  or  its  industrial  services  may  be. 

It  will  be  found  that  the  subjects  are  treated  for  the  most 
part  historically,  or  on  general  principles,  and  that  the  politi- 
cal student  has  seldom  encroached  on  the  domain  of  the 
practical  statesman. 

It  has  been  found  convenient  to  make  "  Utopian  Visions  " 
an  essay  separate  from  "Social  and  Industrial   Revolution." 

The  thanks  of  the  writer  are  once  more  tendered  to  the 
proprietors  and  editors  of  the  North  American  Revieiu,  the 
Forum,  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  the  National  Revieio,  for 
their  courtesy  in  permitting  him  to  draw  upon  articles  which 
appeared  in  their  periodicals,  as  well  as  for  the  privilege 
which  he  has  enjoyed  of  being  one  of  their  contributors. 

August,  1894. 


CONTENTS 


Preface 


Social  and  Industrial  Revolution 


Utopian  Visions 


The  Question  of  Disestablishment 
The  Political  Ckisis  in  England 


The  Empire 


Woman  Suffrage 


The  Jewish  Question 

The  Irish  Question  .... 

Prohibition  in  Canada  and  the  United  States 


PACiK 
V 

1 

■  45 
67 
90 
i;30 
197 
239 
283 
331 


APPENDIX. 
The  Oneida  Community  and  American  Socialism 


.     361 


xvu 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION. 


QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DAY. 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION. 

The  belief  that  the  human  lot  can  be  levelled  by  economical 
change,  and  the  desire  to  make  the  attempt,  are  at  present 
strong;  they  are  giving  birth  to  a  multitude  of  projects,  and 
in  Europe  are  threatening  society  with  convulsion.  In  Amer- 
ica the  possession  of  property  is  as  yet  more  widely  diffused 
than  in  Europe,  Avhile  the  hope  of  possessing  property  is  still 
almost  universal.  Eagerness  to  grasp  a  full  share  of  the  good 
things  of  the  present  life  has  been  intensified  by  the  departure, 
or  decline,  of  the  religious  faith  which  held  out  to  the  unfortu- 
nate in  this  world  the  hope  of  indemnity  in  another.  "If 
to-morrow  we  die,  and  death  is  the  end,  to-day  let  us  eat  and 
drink;  and  if  we  have  not  the  wherewithal,  let  us  see  if  we 
cannot  take  from  those  who  have."  So  multitudes  are  saying 
in  their  hearts,  and  philosophy  has  not  yet  furnished  a  clear 
reply.  I'opular  education  has  gone  far  enough  to  make  the 
masses  think,  not  far  enough  to  make  them  think  deeply; 
they  read  what  falls  in  witli  their  aspirations,  and  their 
thoiights  run  in  the  groove  thus  formed;  flattering  theories 
make  way  rapidly,  and,  like  religious  doctrines,  are  received 
without  examination  by  the  credulous  and  uncritical.  The 
ignorant  readers  of  a  Socialistic  philosopher,  while  they  are 
incompetent  to  understand  or  scrutinise  the  arguments  ad- 
dressed to  their  intellects,  imbibe  the  appeal  addressed  to 
their  feelings  and  desires,  wliich  are  fortified  by  the  impres- 
sion that  they  have  ])hil()so[)liy  on  tlieir  side.  However  good 
the  ultimate  effects  of  popular  education  may  be,  one  of  its 
fii-st  effects,  in  the  absence  of  religion,  can  hardly  fail  to  be 

3 


4  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

discontent.     The  number  of  actual  Communists  or  Socialists 
in  any  country  is  as  yet  small  compared  with  that  of  the 
populat'ion  a,t  large.     Of  what  is  called  Socialism  in  Germany 
inuch  appears  \q  he  mainly  a  revolt  against  the  burden  of 
military  service  and  taxation.     Yet  Socialistic  ideas  and  senti- 
ments spread,   especially  among  the    artisan  class,   which    is 
active-minded,  is   gathered   in   commercial   centres,  lives  on 
wages  about  the  rate  of  which  there  are  frequent  disputes,  is 
filled  with  craving  for  pleasure  by  ever-present  temptations, 
and  stirred  to  envy  by  the  perpetual  sight  of  wealth.     Envy  is 
a  potent  factor  in  the  movement,  and  is  being. inflamed  by  the 
ostentation  of  the  vulgar  rich,  who  thus  deserve,  almost  as 
much  as  the  revolutionary  artisans,  the  name  of  a  dangerous 
class.     This  is  the  main  source  of  that  sort  of  social  revolution 
which  may  be  called  Satanism,  as  it  seeks,  not  to  reconstruct, 
but  to  destroy,  and  to  destroy  not  only  existing  political  insti- 
tutions, but  tlie  established  code  of  morality,  social,  domestic, 
and  personal.     Satanism  manifests  itself  in  different  countries 
under  various  forms  and  names,  such  as  Nihilism,  Intransi- 
gentism,  Petrolean  Communism,  the  dynamite  wing  of  Anarch- 
ism ;  Nihilism  and  Anarchism  being  defined  with  more  startling 
sharpness  than  the  rest,  though  the  destructive  spirit  of  all  is 
the  same.     Social  innovation  is  everywhere  more  or  less  allied 
with,  and  impelled  by,  the  political  and  religious  revolution 
which  fills  the  civilised  world;  while  the  revolution  in  science 
has  helped  to  excite  the  spirit  of  change  in  every  sphere,  little 
as  Utopianism  is  akin  to  science.     Wages  have  greatly  risen. 
The  amount  of  comforts  and  enjoyments  which  they  will  bring 
have  been  multiplied  at  the  same  time.     But  this  brings  the 
wage-earner  within  sight  of  new  objects  of  desire.     Beneficence 
has  vastly  increased ;  but  its  gifts  are  taken  as  instalments  of 
a  boundless  debt.      The  feeling  of   the  wage-earner  towards 
the  capitalist  does  not  seem  to  soften,  nor  the  malevolence  of 
the  labour  journal  to  abate. 

No  man  with  a  brain  and  a  heart  can  fail  to  be  penetrated 
with  a  sense  of  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth,  or  to  be 
willing  to  try  any  experiment  which  ma}'^  hold  out  a  reason- 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  5 

able  hope  of  putting  an  end  to  poverty.  By  the  success  of 
such  an  experiment,  the  happiness  of  the  rich,  of  such,  at 
least,  of  them  as  are  good  men,  would  be  increased  far  more 
than  their  riches  would  be  diminished.  But  only  the  Nihilist 
would  desire  blindly  to  plunge  society  into  chaos.  It  is  plainly 
beyond  our  power  to  alter  the  fundamental  conditions  of  our 
being.  There  are  inequalities  greater  even  than  those  of 
wealth,  which  are  fixed  not  by  human  lawgivers,  but  by  nature, 
such  as  those  of  health,  strength,  intellectual  power,  and 
length  of  life;  and  these  draw  other  inequalities  with  them. 
Justice  is  human.  Where  inequality  is  the  fiat,  not  of  man, 
but  of  a  power  above  man,  it  is  idle,  for  any  practical  purpose, 
to  assail  it  as  injustice.  The  difference  between  a  good  and 
bad  workman  is,  partly  at  least,  the  act  of  nature ;  yet  to 
give  the  same  wages  to  the  good  workman  and  the  bad,  as 
Communists  propose,  while  it  mi^ht  be  just  from  some  super- 
human point  of  view,  from  the  only  point  of  view  which 
humanity  can  practically  attain,  would  be  unjust. 

The  universe  may  be  tending  to  perfection,  but  perfection 
has  not  yet  been  nor  is  its  general  law.  If  Schopenhauer 
had  said  that  this  was  the  worst  of  all  conceivable  worlds,  he 
would  plainly  have  been  wrong;  it  is  possible  to  conceive  a 
world  without  affection,  beauty,  or  hope.  But  when  he  said 
that  it  was  the  worst  of  all  possible  worlds,  that  is,  the  worst 
of  all  worlds  that  could  subsist  without  dissolution,  though  he 
might  still  be  wrong,  he  was  not  so  plainly  wrong.  Look 
wliere  we  will,  disorder,  destruction,  and  cruelty  are  struggling 
with  order,  achievement,  and  beneficence.  Evolutionary  pro- 
gress itself  has  gone  on  since  the  beginning  of  geologic  time 
by  the  elimination  or  decimation  of  races,  not  without  much 
suffering.  Animals  live  by  preying  on  other  animals,  inflict- 
ing pain  and  sometimes  torture  on  their  prey.  This  is  part 
of  the  constitution  of  the  world.  Can  anything  be  less  like 
perfect  justice  than  the  distribution  of  lots  amongst  living 
creatures  of  every  kind  through  the  whole  scale?  The  human 
frame  is  full  of  imperfections,  and  liable  to  a  thousand  diseases, 
of  which  some  may  be  caused  by  imprudence  or  vice,  but 


0  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

others  are  caused  by  mere  accident.  The  natural  character  of 
man  is  full  of  evil  and  destructive  passions.  The  world  in 
which  man  lives  wears  everywhere  the  same  doubtful  aspect. 
The  weather  ripens  the  harvest  and  blights  it;  the  wind  wafts 
the  ship  and  sinks  it.  An  earthquake  engulfs  Lisbon,  while 
they  are  dancing  at  Paris.  Beauty  is  intermixed  with  ugli- 
ness ;  the  shapeliness  of  the  horse,  the  brilliancy  of  the  bird  of 
paradise,  are  mated  with  the  loathsomeness  of  the  puff  adder 
and  the  toad.  Imperfection  apparently  extends  as  far  as  the 
telescope  can  range;  to  the  solar  system,  in  which  there  are 
evidences  of  irregularity  and  wreck,  as  well  as  a  moon  devoid 
of  atmosphere  and  covered  with  extinct  volcanoes,  and  even  to 
the  universe  beyond,  if  science  has  witnessed  the  destruction 
of  a  star.  Yet  some  of  us  imagine  that  the  law  of  the  social 
frame  is  perfection,  and  that  from  the  enjoyment  of  that 
perfection  we  are  debarred  only  by  iniquitous  and  foolish  laws 
or  by  the  selfishness  of  a  privileged  class,  so  that  by  repealing 
the  laws  and  overthrowing,  or  as  the  Jacobins  thought,  guillo- 
tining, the  class,  we  may  enter  into  a  social  paradise.  The 
French  Revolution  was  a  dead-lift  effort  to  level  the  human  lot 
and  make  felicity  universal.  It  swept  away  abuses,  a  great  part 
of  which  Turgot,  had  he  been  allowed  to  accomplish  his  task, 
might  have  quietly  removed.  But  it  brought  on  an  avalanche 
of  crime  and  suffering ;  it  produced  at  once  a  disorganisation 
of  commerce  and  industry,  involving  the  deaths  of  a  million  of 
persons  by  misery;  afterwards  it  gave  birth  to  a  military 
despotism  and  the  Napoleonic  wars;  and  it  has  left  behind 
as  its  legacies  the  volcanic  passions  with  which  Europe  still 
heaves,  and  which  are  always  threatening  it  with  earthquakes 
or  eruptions.  After  all,  the  complaints  of  the  Prench  artisan 
about  the  inequalities  of  wealth  and  the  distinctions  of  class 
are  just  as  passionate  as  ever.  Apparently,  to  lacerate  and 
convulse  the  social  organism  is  only  too  possible,  to  transform 
it  is  beyond  our  power.  This  does  not  make  it  the  less  our 
duty  and  interest  to  remove  every  social  injustice  that  can  be 
removed,  and  level  every  unrighteous  inequality  that  is  capable 
of  being  levelled.     It  limits  effort  only  by  regulating  hope. 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  7 

It  bids  us  look  for   improvement,  not  for  regeneration,  and 
prefer  gradual  reform  to  violent  revolution. 

The  plans  of  innovation  proposed  vary  much  in  character 
and  extent.  Those  which  here  will  be  briefly  passed  in  review 
are  Communism,  Socialism,  Nationalisation  of  Land,  Strikes, 
plans  for  emancipating  Labour  from  the  dominion  of  Capital, 
and  theories  of  innovation  with  regard  to  Currency  and  Banks, 
the  most  prominent  of  which  is  Greenbackism,  or  the  belief  in 
paper  money.  This  seems  a  motley  group,  but  it  will  be  seen 
on  examination,  that  there  runs  through  the  whole  the  same 
hope  of  bettering  the  condition  of  the  masses  without  increase 
of  industry,  or  of  the  substantial  elements  of  Avealth,  and 
without  limiting  the  multiplication  of  their  numbers.  Tlirougli 
several  of  the  plans  there  runs  a  tendency  to  violence  and 
confiscation.  It  may  be  safely  said,  that  all  the  movements 
draw  their  adherents  from  minds  of  the  same  speculative  class, 
and  that  industrial  revolution  is  not,  like  industrial  reform, 
often  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  steady  and  prosperous 
industry.  Lassalle,  the  creator  of  German  Socialism,  and  the 
brilliant  genius  of  the  whole  movement,  is  described  to  us  as 
'^  a  fashionable  dandy  noted  for  his  dress,  for  his  dinners,  and, 
it  must  be  added,  for  his  addiction  to  pleasure."  "Chival- 
rous," we  are  told,  he  was,  "susceptible,  with  a  genuine  feeling 
for  the  poor  man's  case  and  a  genuine  enthusiasm  for  social 
reform ;  a  warm  friend,  a  vindictive  enemy,  full  of  ambition 
both  of  the  nobler  and  more  vulgar  type,  beset  with  an  impor- 
tunate vanity  and  given  to  primitive  lusts,  one  in  whom 
generous  qualities  and  churlish  throve  and  strove  side  by  side, 
and  governed  or  niisgoverned  a  will  to  which  opposition  was 
almost  a  necessary  and  native  element."^  He  was  tried  for 
sedition  when  he  was  twenty-three,  upon  which  occasion, 
though  his  opinions  can  hardly  have  been  matured,  he  declared 
himself  a  social  democrat  and  revolutionary  on  principle. 
Much  of  his  energy  was  spent  during  eiglit  years  in  champion- 
ing the  cause  of  a  countess,  for  whom  ho  nt  length  procured  a 

1  See  Contemporary  Socialism,  by  John  Rae.     Tage  65. 


8  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

divorce  aud  a  princely  fortune,  receiving  a  handsome  annuity 
as  his  reward. 

Of  writers  of  the  Socialistic  school  generally,  it  may  he  said 
that  they  think  almost  exclusively  of  distribution,  paying  little 
attention  to  production.  Production  is  the  more  indispensable 
factor  of  the  two,  but  it  affords  comparatively  little  material 
for  the  agitator.  Let  the  fruits  of  labour  by  all  means  be  as 
fairly  distributed  as  possible,  still  we  cannot  live  by  distribu- 
tion, nor  long  by  socialistic  confiscation. 

By  Communism  is  liere  meant  the  proposal  to  abrogate 
altogether  the  institution  of  property.  The  reply  to  that 
proposal  is  that  property  is  not  an  institution  but  a  fixed 
element  of  human  nature.  A  state  of  things  in  which  a  man 
would  not  think  that  what  he  had  made  for  himself  was  his 
own,  is  unknown  to  experience  and  beyond  the  range  of  our 
conceptions.  A  monk  may  abjure  property  even  in  the  work 
of  his  own  hands,  but  he  feels  that  this  is  an  abnegation  and 
a  sacrifice.  Eugene  Sue,  when  he  endorsed  the  saying  that 
property  is  theft,  affirmed,  by  his  use  of  the  word  theft,  the 
rightful  existence  of  property,  and  it  is  highly  probable  that 
as  a  literary  man  he  would  have  asserted  his  claim  to  copyright, 
which  is  property  in  its  subtlest  form.  The  very  phrase  'pub- 
lic property,'  used  by  advocates  of  confiscation,  implies  that 
there  is  property  somewhere.  And  what  is  the  public  in  this 
case  but  the  majority  taking  land  or  chattels  from  the  minority 
to  appropriate  them  to  itself?  In  early  times  property  in 
land  was  not  individual  but  tribal;  it  is  so  still  in  Afghanis- 
tan, while  in  Russia  and  Hindostan  it  is  vested  in  the  village 
community  which  assigns  lots  to  the  individual  cultivators. 
Still  it  is  property;  squat  upon  the  land  of  an  Afghan  tribe, 
or  of  a  village  community,  Russian  or  Hindoo,  in  the  name  of 
humanity,  and  you  will  be  ejected  as  certainly  as  if  you  had 
squatted  on  the  land  of  an  English  squire.  In  primitive 
hunting-grounds  and  pastures,  property  was  less  definite;  yet 
even  these  would  have  been  defended  against  a  rival  tribe. 
Property  in  clothes,  utensils,  arms,  must  always  have  been 
individual.      Declare   that   everything   belongs    to    the   com- 


SOCIAL   AND    INDUSTRIAL   IIEVOLUTION.  9 

muiiity,  still  government  must  allot  each  citizen  his  rations; 
as  soon  as  lie  receives  them  the  rations  will  be  his  own,  and  if 
another  tries  to  take  them  he  will  resist,  and  by  his  resistance 
affirm  the  principle  of  individual  property. 

Keligious  societies,  in  the  fervour  of  their  youth,  have  for 
a  short  time  sought  to  seal  the  brotherhood  of  their  members 
by  instituting  within  their  own  circle  a  community  of  goods. 
The  primitive  Christians  did  this,  but  they  never  thought  of 
abolishing  property  or  proclaiming  the  communistic  principle 
to  society  at  large.  Paul  distinctly  ratifies  the  principle  of 
property,  "  Let  him  that  stole  steal  no  more ;  but  rather  labour, 
working  with  his  hands  the  thing  which  is  good,  that  he  may 
have  to  give  to  him  that  needeth."  "  While  the  land  remained," 
says  Peter  to  Ananias,  "  did  it  not  remain  thine  own;  and  after 
it  was  sold  was  it  not  in  thy  power?"  Christian  communism, 
so-called,  was  in  fact  merely  a  benefit  fund  or  club;  it  was 
also  short-lived;  as  was  the  communism  of  the  Monastic  orders, 
which  soon  gave  way  to  individual  proprietorship  on  no  ordi- 
nary scale  in  the  persons  of  the  abbots. 

Associations,  called  Communistic,  have  been  founded  in  the 
United  States.  But  these  have  been  nothing  more  than  com- 
mon homes  for  a  small  number  of  people,  living  together  as 
one  household  on  a  joint-stock  fund.  Their  relations  to  the 
community  at  large  have  been  of  the  ordinary  commercial 
kind.  The  Oneida  Community  owned  works  carried  on  by 
hired  labour,  and  dealt  with  the  outside  world  like  any  other 
manufacturer;  nor  did  it  make  any  attempt  to  propagate  com- 
munistic opinions.  A  religious  dictatorship  seems  essential  to 
the  unity  and  peace  of  these  households ;  but  where  they  have 
prospered  economically,  the  secret  of  their  success  has  been 
the  absence  of  children,  which  limited  their  expenses  and 
enabled  them  to  save  money.  Growing  wealthy,  they  have 
ceased  to  proselytise,  and,  if  celibacy  was  kept  up,  have  be- 
come tontines.  They  afford  no  proof  whatever  of  the  practica- 
bility of  Communism  as  a  universal  system.^ 

What  is  the  foundation  of  property?     We  do  not  here  seek 

1  See  Appendix. 


10  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

for  its  theological  foundation  or  for  its  moral  foundation,  but 
for  its  economical  foundation.  Its  economical  foundation  is 
that  it  is  the  only  known  motive  power  of  production.  Slav- 
ery has  its  whip;  but,  saving  this,  no  general  incentive  to 
labour  other  than  property  has  yet  been  devised.  Communists 
think  that  they  can  rely  on  love  of  the  community,  and  they 
point  to  the  case  of  the  soldier  who  they  say  does  his  duty 
voluntarily  from  a  sense  of  military  honour.  It  is  replied 
that,  so  far  from  being  voluntary,  a  soldier's  duty  is  pre- 
scribed by  a  code  of  exceptional  severity,  enforced  by  i^en- 
alties  of  the  sternest  kind. 

That  the  family  and  all  its  affections  are  closely  bound  up 
with  property  is  evident;  and  the  Nihilist  is  consistent  in 
seeking  to  destroy  property  and  the  family  together. 

Tracing  property  to  its  source,  we  find  it  has  its  origin,  as 
a  general  rule,  not  in  "theft,"  but  in  labour,  either  of  the 
hand  or  of  the  brain,  and  in  the  frugality  by  which  the  fruits 
of  labour  have  been  saved.  In  the  case  of  property  which 
has  been  inherited,  we  may  have  to  go  back  generations  to 
reach  this  fact,  but  we  come  to  the  fact  at  last.  Wherever 
the  labour  has  been  honest,  good  we  may  be  sure  has  been 
done,  and  the  Avealth  of  society  at  large,  as  well  as  that  of  the 
worker,  has  been  increased  in  the  process.  Some  property 
has,  of  course,  been  acquired  by  bad  means,  such  as  gambling 
speculation,  or  unrighteous  monopoly,  and  if  we  could  only 
distinguish  this  from  the  rest,  confiscation  might  be  just;  for 
there  is  nothing  sacred  in  property  apart  from  the  mode  in 
which  it  has  been  acquired.  But  the  tares  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  wheat;  discrimination  is  impossible;  all  that  we  can 
do  is  to  discourage  as  much  as  may  be  bad  modes  of  acquisi- 
tion and  refuse  to  pay  homage  to  wealth  ill  acquired.  Heredi- 
tary wealth,  owned  by  those  who  have  themselves  not  worked 
for  it,  strikes  us  as  injustice;  often  it  is  the  moral  ruin  of 
the  heir,  who  sinks  into  a  worthless  sybarite.  To  prevent  its 
excessive  accumulation  is  a  proper  object  of  the  lawgiver,  and 
in  fact  such  has  been  the  tendency  of  legislation  wherever 
inheritance  is  not  bound  up  with  political  institutions  such  as 


SOCIAL   AND    INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  11 

the  House  of  Lords.  But  to  abolish  inheritance  seems  out  of 
the  question.  Bequest  is  merely  a  death-bed  gift;  if  we  fur- 
bid  a  man  to  bequeath  his  wealth,  he  will  give  it  away  in  his 
lifetime,  rather  than  leave  it  to  be  confiscated.  A  great  in- 
ducement to  saving  will  thus  be  lost,  and  without  saving  where 
would  be  the  means  of  increased  production,  and  how  would 
the  economical  world  advance?  The  waste  of  hereditary 
wealth  in  idle  hands  is  to  be  deplored.  But  we  have  admitted 
that  this  is  economically  as  well  as  physically  an  imperfect 
world.  After  all,  in  an  industrial  and  commercial  community 
like  the  United  States,  or  even  England,  the  amount  of  in- 
herited wealth  must  bear  a  small  proportion  to  the  remunera- 
tion of  industrial  service  rendered  to  the  community  by  its 
possessor. 

That  wealth  is  often  abused,  fearfully  abused,  is  too  true; 
so  are  strength,  intellect,  power,  and  opportunities  of  all 
kinds.  It  is  also  true  that  nothing  can  be  more  miserable  or 
abject  than  to  live  in  idleness  by  the  sweat  of  other  men's 
brows.  But  this  is  felt,  in  an  increasing  degree,  by  the  better 
natures ;  private  fortunes  are  more  held  subject  to  the  moral 
claims  of  the  community ;  a  spontaneous  communism  is  thus 
making  way,  and  notably,  as  every  observer  will  see,  in  the 
United  States.  Charitable  and  benevolent  institutions  rise  on 
all  sides.  In  the  United  States  munificence  was  not  arrested 
even  by  the  Civil  War.  This  under  the  dead  level  system  of 
Socialism  would  necessarily  cease,  and  would  have  to  be  re- 
placed by  taxation  administered  by  State  officials.  The  sight 
of  wealth  no  doubt  adds  a  moral  sting  to  poverty.  The  dis- 
play of  it,  therefore,  ought  to  be  avoided,  even  on  the  ground 
of  social  prudence,  by  the  rich.  But  the  increase  of  wealth, 
instead  of  aggravating,  improves  the  lot  even  of  the  poorest. 
In  wealthy  communities  the  destitute  are  relieved;  in  the 
savage  state  they  die. 

By  Socialism  is  meant  the  theory  of  those  who  for  indus- 
trial liberty,  competition,  private  contract,  free  markets,  and 
the  present  agencies  of  commerce,  propose  in  various  degrees 


12  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

to  introduce  regulation  and  remuneration  of  industry  by  "  the 
State."  What  is  the  State?  People  seem  to  suppose  that 
there  is  something  outside  and  above  the  members  of  the  com- 
munity which  answers  to  this  name,  and  which  has  duties  and 
a  wisdom  of  its  own.  But  duties  can  attach  only  to  persons, 
wisdom  can  reside  only  in  brains.  The  State,  when  you  leave 
abstractions  and  come  to  facts,  is  nothing  but  the  government, 
which  can  have  no  duties  but  those  which  the  constitution 
assigns  it,  nor  any  wisdom  but  that  which  is  infused  into  it 
by  the  mode  of  appointment  or  election.  What,  then,  is  the 
government  which  Socialism  would  set  up,  and  to  which  it 
would  entrust  powers  infinitely  greater  than  those  which  any 
ruler  has  ever  practically  wielded,  with  duties  infinitely 
harder  than  those  which  the  highest  political  wisdom  has  ever 
dared  to  undertake?  This  is  the  first  question  which  the 
Socialist  has  to  answer.  His  school  denounces  all  existing 
governments,  and  all  those  of  the  past,  as  incompetent  and 
unjust.  What  does  he  propose  to  institute  in  their  room,  and 
by  what  process,  elective  or  of  any  other  kind,  is  the  change 
to  be  made?  Where  will  he  find  the  human  material  out  of 
which  he  can  frame  this  earthly  Providence,  infallible  and  in- 
corruptible, whose  award  shall  be  unanimously  accepted  as 
superior  to  all  existing  guarantees  for  industrial  justice?  The 
chiefs  of  industry  are  condemned  beforehand  as  tyrannical 
capitalists.  Will  the  artisan  submit  willingly  to  the  auto- 
cratic rule  of  his  brother?  If  he  would,  is  it  conceivable  that 
a  man  whose  life  had  been  spent  in  manual  or  mechanical 
labour  would  be  fit  for  supreme  rule?  The  question,  What 
is  the  government  to  be,  once  more  presents  itself  on  the 
threshold  and  demands  an  answer.  To  accept  an  unlimited 
and  most  searching  despotism  without  knowing  to  whose  hands 
it  is  to  be  entrusted  would  evidently  be  madness.  Curiously 
enough,  from  nearly  the  same  quarter  from  which  comes 
Socialism,  with  its  demand  for  paternal  government,  comes 
also  Anarchism,  demanding  that  there  shall  be  no  government 
at  all.  The  two,  however,  are  allied;  Anarchism  is  the  foam 
on  the  Socialistic  wave.      It  is  idle  to  form  theories,  whether 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  13 

economical  or  social,  without  considering  the  actual  circum- 
stances under  which  they  are  to  be  applied,  and  the  means 
and  possibilities  of  carrying  them  into  effect.  This  is  the 
merest  truism,  yet  it  is  one  which,  so  far  as  we  know,  Social- 
ism disregards. 

Despotic  a  government  must  be,  in  order  to  secure  submis- 
sion to  its  assignment  of  industrial  parts  and  to  its  award  of 
wages,  especially  if  the  wages  are  to  be  measured,  not  by  the 
amount  or  quality  of  the  work,  but  by  some  higher  law  of 
desert  or  benevolence.  Despotic  it  must  be  to  enable  it  to 
compel  indolence  to  work  at  all.  Its  power,  practically,  must 
be  made  to  extend  beyond  the  sphere  of  industry  to  social, 
domestic,  and  individual  life.  Resistance  to  its  decrees  could 
not  be  permitted,  nor  could  it  be  deposed  in  case  of  tyranny 
or  abuse.  Liberty,  in  short,  would  be  at  an  end,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  progress  could  survive  liberty.  The  in- 
ventor of  each  Utopia  assumes  the  finality  of  his  system.  He 
takes  it  for  granted  that  time,  having  now  produced  its  per- 
fect fruit,  will  bear  no  more.  But  history  and  science  tell  us 
that  time  is  likely  to  bear  new  fruit  without  end. 

Assignment  of  manual  labour  and  payment  for  its  perform- 
ance by  a  paternal  government  are  conceivable,  though  not 
practically  feasible.  But  how  could  men  be  told  off  for  in- 
tellectual labour,  for  scientific  research,  for  invention?  Could 
the  Socialistic  ruler  pick  out  a  Shakespeare,  a  Newton,  or  an 
Arkwright,  set  him  to  his  work  and  pay  him  while  he  was 
about  it?  What  security  would  there  be  against  a  lapse  into 
intellectual  barbarism?  Socialistic  writers,  as  a  rule,  are  apt 
to  think  of  the  position  and  interests  of  manual  labour  alone; 
they  take  no  comprehensive  view  of  civilisation.  Is  not 
Socialism  a  manual  labourer's  dream?  Of  the  artisans  whom 
these  theories  flatter,  all  whose  trades  minister  to  literature, 
art,  or  refinement  would  be  in  danger  of  finding  themselves 
without  work.  Might  not  science  itself  cease  to  advance?  If 
science  ceased  to  advance,  what  would  become  of  the  hopes  of 
humanity? 

Let  the  Socialist  survey  the  whole  frame  of  material  civili- 


U  QUESTIONS   OF  THE    DAY. 

sation,  with  all  its  machinery  of  production  and  distribution, 
and  ask  himself  whether  all  this  could  be  produced  by  the 
action  of  governments  or  by  anything  but  individual  effort, 
competition,  and  invention,  with  the  aid  of  spontaneous  asso- 
ciation. According  to  him,  economical  history  has  been  one 
vast  aberration.  In  what  course  and  under  what  guidance 
ought  it  to  have  run? 

Some  Socialists  propose  to  cut  up  the  industrial  and  com- 
mercial world  into  phalansteries,  or  sections  of  some  kind,  for 
the  purposes  of  their  organisation.  But  industry  and  com- 
merce are  networks  covering  the  whole  globe.  To  what 
phalanstery  would  the  sailors,  the  railway  men,  and  the 
traders  between  different  countries  be  assigned? 

Take  any  complex  product  of  human  labour,  say,  a  piece  of 
cotton  goods  worth  a  penny.  Let  the  Socialist  trace  out,  as 
far  as  thought  will  go,  the  industries  which,  in  various  ways, 
and  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  have  contributed  to  the 
production,  including  the  making  of  machinery,  shipbuilding, 
and  all  the  employments  and  branches  of  trade  ancillary  to 
these;  let  him  consider  how,  by  the  operation  of  economic 
law,  under  the  system  of  industrial  liberty,  the  single  penny 
is  distributed  among  all  these  industries  justly,  "  even  to  the 
estimation  of  a  hair,"  and  then  let  him  ask  himself  whether 
his  government,  or  his  group  of  governments,  is  likely  to  do 
better  than  nature. 

Socialists  claim  the  Factory  laws  as  a  recognition  of  their 
principle  and  as  opening  the  door  of  industrial  revolution. 
But  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  the  enforcement  of  sanitary  regu- 
lations or  safeguards  for  life  and  limb  is  more  socialistic  in 
the  case  of  a  factory  than  in  the  case  of  a  city,  or  why  the 
protection  of  women  and  children  who  cannot  protect  them- 
selves against  industrial  cruelty  and  abuse  is  more  socialistic 
than  the  protection  of  them  against  wife-beating  or  infanti- 
cide. How  far  legislation  shall  go  in  this  direction  must  be 
determined  not  by  any  theory,  socialistic  or  anti-socialistic, 
but  by  the  character  and  circumstances  of  the  particular  com- 
munity.    In  some  communities  strict  legislation  will  be  re- 


SOCIAL   AND  INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  15 

quired  in  cases  where  in  others  indiyidual  intelligence  and 
individual  sense  of  duty  will  suffice.  These  differences  be- 
tween communities  in  different  stages  of  development  social- 
istic theory  disregards.  It  treats  humanity  as  a  uniform  and 
level  field.  That  the  Factory  Acts  have  not  induced  any 
radical  change  in  the  industrial  system  the  complaints  of 
the  Socialists  themselves  are  proof. 

Ownership  of  public  establishments  and  services,  again,  is 
a  question  apart,  defined  by  the  necessities  of  government, 
and  involves  nothing  socialistic.  Government  obviously  must 
own  everything  necessary  to  public  order  or  national  defence; 
it  must  own  the  postal  service,  to  which  its  protection  is 
plainly  necessary,  and  to  the  postal  service  the  telegraphic 
service  may  be  reasonably  joined.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
National  workshops  at  Paris  were  a  failure ;  even  the  Govern- 
ment ship-yards  in  England,  though  rendered  necessary  by 
the  exigencies  of  national  defence,  are  said  to  be  conducted 
less  economically  than  private  yards.  Australians  tell  us 
that  with  them  government  ownership  of  railways  answers 
well.  There  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not,  provided  the 
government  is  pure.  The  cost  of  competing  lines  is  saved, 
and  if  the  stimulus  of  competitive  enterprise  is  withdrawn, 
that  of  administrative  emulation  may  take  its  place.  Coun- 
tries might  be  named  which,  if  the  government  owned  rail- 
ways as  well  as  subsidised  them,  would  be  plunged  into  cor- 
ruption. In  all  government  establishments  there  is  danger 
of  corruption,  still  more  of  laziness,  torpor,  and  somnolent 
routine. 

More  truly  socialistic  is  the  assumption  by  the  State  of  the 
duty  of  popular  education.  The  prevailing  opinion  is  that  it 
is  the  manifest  duty  of  the  State  to  provide  schools  for  every- 
body's children  out  of  the  public  taxes.  It  might  be  thought 
that  nothing  was  more  manifest  than  the  duty  of  every  man 
to  provide  education  as  well  as  food  and  clothes  for  his  own 
children,  since  it  is  by  his  act  that  they  come  into  the  Avorld; 
or  less  manifest  than  the  duty  of  the  prudent  man  who  defers 
marriage  till  he  has  the  means  of  bringing  up  a  family,  to 


16  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

provide  as  a  tax-payer  for  the  schooling  of  the  children  of  his 
less  prudent  neighbours.  The  wisdom  which  sets  itself  above 
justice  ought  to  be  very  high.  There  are  some,  it  seems,  who 
would  not  only  educate  the  children  of  the  poor  gratuitously, 
that  is,  out  of  the  public  taxes,  but  would  give  the  school 
children  meals  and  even  clothes  at  the  public  expense.  They 
can  scarcely  doubt  that  of  such  a  system  of  almsgiving,  wide- 
spread pauperism  Avould  be  the  fruit.  Their  policy  points  to 
a  renewal  of  the  Eoman  proletariat  living  on  the  alms  of  the 
State.  When  the  duty  of  education  is  undertaken  by  govern- 
ment, parental  duty  in  this  respect,  and  whatever  goes  with 
it  of  family  character,  must  expire.  Let  those  who  think  that 
the  intellectual  fruits  of  the  State  machine  substituted  for 
voluntary  agencies  are  entirely  satisfactory,  read  the  series 
of  papers  in  the  New  York  Forum,^  giving  an  account  of  a 
tour  of  inspection  among  the  public  schools  of  the  United 
States.  Formation  of  character  and  manners  the  system  hardly 
professes.  If  it  did,  the  manners  would  too  often  belie  the 
claim.  It  lacks  motive  power  in  that  line.  The  original 
New  England  school  was  the  school  of  a  small  group  of  fami- 
lies carried  on  under  the  eyes  of  the  parents,  not  unparental, 
therefore,  and  it  was  intensely  religious.  These  conditions 
are  changed.  Politics,  too,  and  ward-demagogism  are  apt  to 
lay  their  hands  on  the  election  of  school  trustees.  High- 
schools  are  accused  of  helping  to  set  the  farmer's  sons  and 
daughters  above  farm  work,  and  to  send  them,  for  what  they 
think  higher  employment,  to  the  already  over-crowded  cities. 
If  this  or  any  other  mischief  is  being  done,  there  is  no  remedy. 
You  cannot  stop  the  State  machine.  What  is  voluntary,  when 
it  fails,  stops  of  itself.  What  is  voluntary  admits  of  adapta- 
tion to  various  needs,  of  free  experiment,  of  emulation;  the 
machine  does  not.  However,  State  education  is  commended 
to  us  on  the  ground  of  political  necessity.  We  are  told  that 
we  must  educate  our  masters.  Popular  ignorance  with  popu- 
lar suffrage  would  be  fatal  to  the  community.  This  puts  State 
education  not  on  socialistic  grounds  but  on  that  of  political 

1  Vols.  IV.,  v.,  and  VI. 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  17 

necessity,  and  necessity,  Avhetlier  political,  military,  or  sani- 
tary, must  be  supreme.  The  worst  of  it  is  that  unless  the 
truancy  laws  are  more  strictly  enforced  than  is  usually  possi- 
ble in  a  democracy,  the  dangerous  classes  are  not  in  school. 

Circulating  libraries,  maintained  at  the  expense  of  the  rate- 
payer, may  fairly  rank  as  socialistic,  since  peojde  have  no  more 
right  to  novels  than  to  theatre-tickets  out  of  the  public  taxes. 
So  may  pensions  for  the  aged,  now  proposed  in  England,  the 
effect  of  which  would  probably  be  the  discouragement  of 
frugality,  while  the  burden  on  the  tax-paying  community  would 
be  enormous  when  the  pension  agent  got  to  work.  Manifestly 
socialistic  again  is  the  Eight  Hours'  Bill,  passed  by  the  House 
of  Commons,  which  interferes  with  the  adult  labourer's  dis- 
posal of  liis  own  labour  and  with  freedom  of  contract  between 
him  and  his  employer.  The  effect  of  such  a  measure  must  be 
to  throw  out  of  work  those  who  cannot  do  in  eight  hours  the 
work  of  ten,  that  is,  the  weaker  labourers;  unless  a  clause  is 
inserted  compelling  the  mine-owner  to  employ  men  at  a  loss. 
In  the  public  establishments  government  can,  of  course,  pay 
what  wages  it  thinks  fit,  since  it  draws  them  from  the 
public  funds. 

Differentiation  marks  advance,  and  a  centralisation  which 
should  reduce  all  functions  to  those  of  a  single  organ  would 
be  not  an  advance  but  a  degradation  in  the  political  as  in  the 
animal  world. 

A  special  form  of  Socialism  is  Nationalisation  of  Land. 
This  has  received  an  impulse  from  recent  legislation  for 
Ireland.  Not  that  the  Irish  tenant  farmer  is  an  agrarian 
socialist,  or  a  socialist  of  any  kind;  what  he  wants  is  to  oust 
the  landlord  and  have  the  farm  to  himself ;  if  you  demand,  as 
a  member  of  the  community,  a  share  of  his  land,  he  will  give 
you  six  feet  of  it.  He  exacts  a  heavy  rent  for  a  little  croft 
from  the  farm  labourer  in  his  employment.  The  sirens  of 
Nationalisation  have  sung  to  him  in  vain.  Nor  did  the  framers 
of  the  Land  Acts  profess  to  abrogate  or  assail  private  property 
in  land;  they  professed  only  to  adjust  by  legislation  a  dispute 


18  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

between  two  classes  of  property-holders  which  threatened  the 
peace  of  the  State.  But  the  natural  consequences  have  been 
a  general  disturbance  of  ideas,  and  an  increase  of  hope  and 
activity  among  the  apostles  of  agrarian  revolution. 

These  theorists  hold  that  private  property  in  land  is  "a 
bold,  base,  enormous  wrong,  like  that  of  chattel  slavery." 
Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  had  said,  "Had  we  to  deal  with  the 
parties  who  originally  robbed  the  human  race  of  its  heritage, 
we  might  make  short  work  of  the  matter."  To  which  the 
Nationalist  replies :  "  Why  not  make  short  work  of  the  matter 
anyhow?  Por  this  robbery  is  not  like  the  robbery  of  a  horse 
or  a  sum  of  money,  that  ceases  with  the  act.  It  is  a  fresh  and 
continuous  robbery  that  goes  on  every  day  and  every  hour." 
It  is  projiosed  to  forfeit,  either  openly,  or  under  the  thin 
disguise  of  a  use  of  the  taxing  power,  every  man's  freehold, 
even  the  farm  which  the  settler  has  just  reclaimed  by  the 
sweat  of  his  own  brow  from  the  wilderness ;  and  it  is  emphati- 
cally added,  in  language  which  sounds  like  the  exultation  of 
injustice,  that  no  compensation  is  due ;  the  man  being  merely 
ejected  from  that  which  never  belonged  to  him,  as  a  wrongful 
possessor  is  ejected  by  a  court  of  law.  That  the  State  has, 
by  the  most  solemn  and  repeated  guarantees,  ratified  private 
proprietorship  and  undertaken  to  protect  it,  matters  nothing ; 
nor  even  that  it  has  itself  recently  sold  the  land  to  the 
proprietor,  signed  the  deed  of  sale,  and  received  the  payment. 
Aghast,  perhaps,  at  his  own  proposal,  the  reformer  afterwards 
suggests  that  in  mercy,  not  of  right,  compensation  for  improve- 
ments, though  not  for  the  land,  may  be  granted.  But  if  the 
nation  is  to  compensate  for  all  improvements,  it  may  as  well 
at  once  give  a  deed  of  quit  claim  for  the  land,  since  land 
without  improvements  has  no  value. 

In  the  first  place,  how  do  the  iSTationalisers  mean  to  carry 
into  effect  their  schemes  of  resumption?  They  can  hardly 
suppose  that  large  classes  will  allow  themselves  to  be  treated 
as  robbers  and  turned  out  of  their  freeholds  without  striking 
a  blow  in  their  own  defence.  There  would  probably  be  civil 
war,  in  which  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that  the  agrarian 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  19 

philosopher  and  his  disciples  would  get  the  better  of  the  owners 
and  tillers  of  land;  while,  if  they  did,  social  peace  would 
hardly  ensue. 

In  the  second  place,  as  it  is  to  the  government  that  all  land, 
or  the  rent  of  all  land,  is  to  be  made  over,  we  must  ask  tlie 
agrarian  socialist  what  form  of  government  he  means  to  give 
us.  The  theorists  themselves  denounce,  as  loudly  as  any  one, 
the  knavery  and  corruption  of  the  politicians,  who  would 
hardly  be  made  pure  and  upright  simply  by  putting  the  man- 
agement of  all  the  land  of  the  nation  into  their  hands. 
Utopians  forget  that  in  introducing  their  systems  they  will 
have  to  deal  with  the  world  and  with  human  character  as 
they  are. 

Why  is  property  in  land  thus  singled  out  for  forfeiture;  and 
why  are  its  holders  selected  for  especial  denunciation?  Be- 
cause, say  the  Nationalisers,  the  land  is  the  gift  of  God  to 
mankind,  and  ought  not  to  be  appropriated  by  any  individual 
owner.  This  would  preclude  appropriation  by  a  nation,  as 
well  as  appropriation  by  a  man ;  but  let  that  pass.  In  every 
article  which  we  use,  in  the  paper  and  type  of  the  very  book 
which  advocates  confiscation,  there  are  raw  materials  and 
natural  forces,  which  are  just  as  much  the  gift  of  God  as  the 
land.  God  made  the  wool  of  which  your  coat  is  woven  to  grow 
on  the  sheep's  back,  and  endowed  steam  with  the  power  to  work 
the  engine  of  the  mill.  God,  for  the  matter  of  that,  gave 
every  man  his  brain  and  his  limbs.  Land  is  worth  nothing,  it 
is  worth  no  more  than  the  same  extent  of  sea,  till  it  is  brought 
under  cultivation  Ijy  labour,  which  must  be  that  of  particular 
men.  The  value  is  the  creation  of  individual  labour  and  capi- 
tal, in  this  case,  as  in  the  case  of  a  manufacture.  Circum- 
stances, such  as  the  growth  of  neighbouring  cities,  may  favour 
the  landowners.  Circumstances  may  favour  any  owner  or 
producer.  They  may  also  be  unfavourable  to  any  owner  or 
producer,  as  they  have  been  of  late  to  the  landowners  and 
agriciiltural  producers  in  England;  and  unless  the  State  means 
to  protect  the  holder  of  ])roperty  against  misfortune  it  has 
surely  no  right  to  mulct  him  for  his  good  luck.     The  coal  and 


20  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

iron  beds  of  Wyoming  and  Montana,  we  are  told,  which  to-day 
are  valueless,  will  in  fifty  years  from  now  be  worth  millions  on 
millions,  simply  because  in  the  meantime  population  will  have 
greatly  increased.  They  will  be  worth  nothing  unless  they  are 
worked,  and  where  is  the  wrong  if  metals  or  beef  or  wool 
or  anything  else  is  worth  more  to  the  producer  when  produced 
in  the  midst  of  a  swarming  population  than  when  produced  in 
a  desert? 

Nor  is  there  anything  specially  unjust,  or  in  any  way  pecu- 
liar, about  the  mode  in  which  the  labourer  on  land  is  paid  by 
the  landowner  or  capitalist.  Every  labourer  virtually  draws 
his  pay  from  the  moment  when  he  begins  his  work.  He 
draws  it  in  credit,  which  enables  him  to  get  what  he  wants  at 
the  baker's  and  grocer's,  if  not  at  once  in  cash. 

All  land  will,  of  course,  fall  under  the  same  rule.  The  lot 
on  which  the  mechanic  has  built  his  house  will  be  nationalised 
as  well  as  the  ranch. 

It  would  appear  that  natural  produce,  being  equally  with 
the  land  the  gift  of  the  Creator,  should  be  equally  exempt 
from  the  possibility  of  lawful  ownership,  so  that  we  should 
be  justified  in  repudiating  our  milk  bills  because  cows  feed  on 
grass. 

Is  Poverty  the  offspring  of  land-ownership  or  the  land  laws? 
Any  one  who  is  not  sailing  on  the  wings  of  a  theory  can 
answer  that  question  by  looking  at  the  facts  before  his  eyes. 
Poverty  springs  from  many  sources,  personal  and  general; 
from  indolence,  infirmity,  age,  disease,  intemperance;  from  the 
failure  of  harvests  and  the  decline  of  local  trade ;  from  changes 
in  the  modes  of  production  and  the  lines  of  commerce  which 
throw  men  out  of  employment ;  from  the  growth  of  population 
beyond  the  means  of  subsistence.  If  the  influence  of  the  last 
cause  is  denied,  let  it  be  shown  what  impelled  the  migrations 
by  which  the  earth  has  been  peopled.  Poverty  has  existed  on 
a  large  scale  in  great  commercial  cities,  which  the  land  laws 
could  but  little  affect,  and  even  in  cities  like  Venice,  which 
had  no  land  at  all. 

The   increase  of  poverty   itself  is  a  fiction.     The  number 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  21 

of  people,  in  all  civilised  countries,  living  in  plenty  and  com- 
fort, has  vastly  increased;  it  lias  increased  both  positively  and 
relatively  to  the  number  of  the  destitute,  and  though,  with 
a  vast  increase  in  numbers,  there  is  necessarily  a  positive 
increase  of  misfortune  and  poverty,  even  the  poorest  are  not 
so  ill  off  now  as  they  were  in  the  times  of  primitive  barbarism, 
when  famine  stalked  through  unsettled  tribes  at  the  mercy  of 
the  local  accidents  of  nature,  though  there  was  no  "  monopoly  " 
of  land.  The  London  slums  are  hideous,  but  they  are  a  spot 
in  a  vast  expanse  of  decent  homes,  which  is  represented  as  not 
only  the  mate  of  poverty,  but  its  source.  The  two  or  three 
millions  in  the  days  of  the  Plantagenets  had  more  room  and 
larger  sliares  of  the  free  gifts  of  nature  than  the  thirty  millions 
have  now.  But  the  working  classes  of  those  days  lived  in 
chimneyless  hovels,  and,  as  Dr.  Jessop  thinks,  had,  in  Nor- 
folk, but  a  single  garment,  not  more  wearing  linen  then  than 
now  wear  silk.  Eound  the  gates  of  the  monasteries  gathered 
beggars  for  whom,  when  the  monasteries  had  been  dissolved, 
was  framed  the  ruthless  vagrancy  law  of  the  Tudors.  Loath- 
some diseases  such  as  leprosy  were  common,  and  a  third  of  the 
population  was  carried  off  by  the  Black  Death.  Local  famines 
were  frequent,  owing  to  the  want  of  machinery  for  distribution. 
If  dissatisfaction  was  not  manifested  in  strikes,  it  was  mani- 
fested in  the  insurrection  of  Wat  Tyler.  Is  there  less  poverty 
in  unprogressive  countries,  such  as  the  kingdoms  of  the  East, 
or  Spain  and  Italy,  than  in  those  which  have  been  the  seats  of 
progress?  That,  of  the  increased  wealth  of  England  and  other 
industrial  countries,  the  largest  share  has  gone  to  wages  seems 
to  be  clearly  proved.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  remu- 
neration of  maniial  labour  has  risen,  compared  with  that  of 
intellectual  work.  In  America  there  are  mechanics  not  a  few 
paid  at  a  higher  rate  than  men  who  have  undergone  expensive 
education.  Progress,  therefore,  is  not  the  mate  of  poverty. 
To  say  that  it  is  the  source  is  preposterous.  If  progress 
stopped,  would  poverty  stop  with  it? 

We  cannot  all  ])e  husbandmen  or  personally  make  any  use 
of   land.     What  we  want,  as  a  community,  in  the  economical 


22  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

point  of  view,  is  that  the  soil  shall  produce  as  much  food 
as  possible  5  and  facts  as  well  as  reason  seem  to  show  that 
a  high  rate  of  production  is  attained  only  where  tenure  is 
secure.  Tlie  greater  the  security  of  tenure,  the  more  of  his 
labour  and  capital  the  husbandman  will  put  into  the  land,  and 
the  larger  the  harvest  will  be.  It  has  been  said,  and  though 
an  over-statement,  the  saying  has  truth  in  it,  that  if  you  give 
a  man  the  freehold  of  a  desert,  he  will  make  it  a  garden,  and 
if  you  give  him  the  lease  of  a  garden,  he  will  make  it  a  desert. 
The  spur  which  proprietorship  lends  to  industry  is  prover- 
bially keen  in  the  case  of  ownership  of  land.  The  French 
peasant  is  a  remarkable  proof  of  this.  Originally,  all  owner- 
ship was  tribal;  and  if  tribal  ownership  has,  in  all  civilised 
countries,  given  place  to  private  ownership,  this  is  the  verdict 
of  civilisation  in  favour  of  the  present  system.  Where  tribal 
ownership  has  lingered,  as  in  Russia  and  in  Afghanistan,  gen- 
eral barbarism  has  lingered  with  it.  The  idea  that  a  wicked 
company  of  land-grabbers  aggressed  upon  the  public  property, 
and  set  up  a  monopoly  in  their  own  favour,  is  a  fancy  as  base- 
less as  the  Social  Contract  of  Rousseau,  or  any  of  the  other 
figments  respecting  social  origins  which  our  knowledge  of 
primeval  history  has  dispelled.  Did  this  extraordinary  fit  of 
spoliation  come  without  concert  upon  every  one  of  the  coun- 
tries now  included  in  the  civilised  world?  Where  are  the 
records  or  the  traces  of  this  momentous  series  of  events? 

Is  it  intended  that  the  tenure  of  those  who  are  to  hold  the 
land  under  the  State  shall  be  secure?  If  it  is,  nothing  will 
have  been  gained;  private  property,  and  what,  to  excite 
odium,  is  called  monopoly,  though  there  are  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  proprietors,  will  return  under  another  form.  The 
only  result  will  be  a  change  of  the  name  from  freeholder  to 
something  expressive  of  concession  in  perpetuity  by  the  State; 
and  this  will  be  obtained  at  the  expense  of  a  shock  to  agricul- 
ture the  immediate  effect  of  which  might  be  a  dearth.  That 
we  have  all  a  right  to  live  upon  the  land  is  a  proposition,  in 
one  sense,  absurd,  unless  the  cities  are  to  be  abandoned,  and 
we  are  to  revert  to  the  primeval  state ;  in  another  sense,  true, 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  23 

though  subject  to  the  necessary  limit  of  population.  But  what 
Nationalisation  practically  proposes  is,  that  a  good  many  of 
us,  instead  of  living,  shall,  by  reduced  production,  be  deprived 
of  bread  and  either  be  driven  into  exile  or  die. 

Nationalisation  sometimes  assumes  the  name  of  the  Single 
Tax  movement,  which  promises  us  unspeakable  benefits  if 
we  throw  the  whole  burden  of  taxation  on  the  value  of 
land  unimproved.  Who  would  be  found  to  hold  land?  Who 
would  be  found  to  hold  that  which  yields  nothing  and  pay  a  tax 
on  it?  Shift  the  incidence  of  taxation  as  you  will,  it  makes 
itself  felt,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  the  whole  community.  If 
justice  is  to  reign  in  the  fiscal  region,  the  service  rendered  by 
government,  whether  national  or  municipal,  ought  to  be  as 
far  as  possible  the  measure  of  taxation,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
which  government  and  police  render  so  little  service  as  un- 
improved land. 

When  we  talk  of  Nationalising,  it  is  well  to  remember,  that 
though  territory  is  still  national,  nations  no  longer  live  upon 
the  produce  of  their  own  territory  alone,  and  that  the  scope 
of  these  plans  of  change  must  be  enlarged  so  as  to  embrace  the 
commercial  world. 

A  milder  school  of  agrarian  socialists  proposes  to  confiscate 
only  what  it  calls  the  unearned  increment  of  land,  that  is,  any 
additional  value  which,  from  time  to  time,  may  accrue  through 
the  action  of  surrounding  circumstances  and  the  general  pro- 
gress of  the  community,  Avithout  exertion  or  outlay  on  the  part 
of  the  individual  owner.  Very  sharp  and  skilful  inspectors 
would  be  required  to  watch  the  increase  and  to  draw  the  line. 
The  question  also  recurs,  whether,  if  unearned  increment 
is  to  be  taken  away,  accidental  decrement  ought  not  to  be 
made  good.  But  here,  again,  we  must  ask,  why  landed  prop- 
erty alone  is  to  be  treated  in  this  way?  Property  of  any  kind 
may  grow  more  valuable  witliout  effort  or  outlay  on  the  owner's 
part.  Is  the  State  to  seize  upon  all  the  premium  on  stocks? 
A  mechanic  buys  a  pair  of  boots;  the  next  day  leather  goes 
up;  is  the  State  to  take  toll  of  the  mechanic's  boots? 

The  fact  is,  that  the  vision  of  certain  economists  is  distorted 


24  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

and  their  views  are  narrowed  by  hatred  of  the  landlord  class. 
Too  many  landlords,  especially  in  old  countries,  are  idle  and 
useless  members  of  society,  but  owners  of  other  kinds  of 
hereditary  property  are  often  idle  and  useless  too.  That  the 
land  should  have  been  so  improved  as  to  be  able  to  pay  the 
owner  as  well  as  the  cultivator,  does  the  community  no  harm. 
This  we  see  plainly,  where  the  owner,  instead  of  being  a  rich 
man,  is  a  charitable  institution.  Nor,  is  any  outcry  raised, 
when  the  same  person,  being  owner  and  cultivator,  unites  with 
the  wages  of  one  the  revenue  of  the  other.  The  belief  that 
there  is  some  evil  mystery  in  rent,  has  been  fostered  by  the 
metaphysical  disquisitions  of  economists,  who  seem  to  have 
been  entrapped  by  their  disregard  of  any  language  but  one. 
Rent  is  nothing  but  the  hire  of  land,  or,  to  speak  more  pre- 
cisely, of  the  improvements  that  have  been  made  by  the' 
owner  or  by  those  from  whom  he  has  inherited  or  purchased ; 
and  there  is  no  more  mystery  about  it  than  there  is  about 
the  hire  of  a  machine  or  a  horse.  In  Greek,  the  word  for 
the  hire  of  land  and  of  a  chattel  is  the  same. 

The  desire  of  confiscating  the  property  of  landowners  is,  in 
European  countries,  closely  connected  with  the  objects  of 
political  revolution.  But  public  spoliation,  though  it  might 
commence,  would  not  end  here,  nor  would  there  be  any  ground 
for  fixing  this  as  its  limit.  Let  a  reason  be  given  for  confis- 
cating real  estate  honestly  acquired,  and  the  same  reason  will 
hold  good  for  confiscating  personalty,  the  labourer's  wages, 
and  the  copyright  of  the  author  or  the  plant  of  the  journalist 
who  wins  popularity  by  advocating  spoliation  of  his  neigh- 
bour. If  property  is  theft,  the  property  in  the  Savings  Bank 
is  theft  like  the  rest. 

Peasant  proprietorship  is  as  much  opposed  as  anything  can 
possibly  be  to  nationalisation  of  land;  so  the  Rationalisers, 
when  they  approach  the  peasant  pro2:)rietor,  speedily  find. 
But  there  are  some  who  look  to  it  with  unbounded  hope.  The 
political  arguments  in  its  favour  arcAvell  known;  among  them 
is  the  adamantine  resistance  which  it  offers  to  communism  of 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  25 

all  kinds.  Economical  considerations  are  apparently  against 
it  since  a  farmer  on  the  great  scale  in  Dakota  will  raise  as 
much  grain  with  a  luindred  labourers  as  is  raised  by  ten  times 
the  number  of  French  peasants.  Socially  there  are  arguments 
both  ways.  The  advantage,  and,  indeed,  the  ultimate  exist- 
ence of  the  manorial  system,  must  depend  upon  the  presence 
of  the  landowner  upon  his  estate  and  his  performance  of  his 
duties  to  his  tenants.  But  the  life  of  the  peasant  in  France, 
and  even  in  Switzerland,  is  hard,  and  sometimes  almost  barbar- 
ous, while  he  can  scarcely  tide  over  a  bad  harvest  Avithout 
falling  into  the  money-lender's  hands.  On  the  American  con- 
tinent, where  the  people  are  more  educated,  their  tendency 
seems  to  be,  when  they  can,  to  exchange  life  on  the  farm, 
which  they  find  dull  and  lonely,  for  the  more  social  life  of  the 
city.  Perhaps  the  time  may  come  when  agriculture  will  be 
carried  on  scientifically,  and  upon  a  large  scale,  to  furnish 
food  for  an  urban  population.  The  life  on  a  great  farm  would 
be  social,  and  would  exercise  higher  intelligence  than  spade 
labour.  England,  the  enthusiasts  of  peasant  proprietorship 
should  remember,  is  organised  on  the  manorial  system,  not 
only  with  manor  houses  but  with  large  farms  and  large  farm 
buildings  to  correspond.  Do  they  intend  to  clear  away  the 
farm  buildings  as  well  as  the  manor  houses,  and  to  construct 
a  set  adapted  to  small  holdings  in  their  room? 

Liberation  of  labour  from  the  exactions  of  the  capitalist  is 
the  hope  of  those  who  set  on  foot  co-operative  works.  These, 
liitherto,  have  generally  failed  from  inability  to  wait  for  the 
market  and  tide  over  bad  times,  from  want  of  a  guiding  hand, 
and  from  the  unwillingness  of  the  artisan  to  resign  his  inde- 
pendence and  his  liberty  of  moving  from  place  to  place; 
though  the  last  cause  is  less  operative  with  the  submissive 
Frenchman  than  with  his  sturdy  English  or  American  com- 
peer. Capital,  spelt  with  a  big  initial  letter,  swells  into  a 
malignant  giant,  the  personal  enemy  of  labour;  spelt  in  the 
natural  way,  it  is  simply  that  with  which  labour  starts  on  any 
enterprise,  and  without  which  no  labour  can  start  at  all,  unless 


26  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

it  be  that  of  the  savage  grubbing  roots  with  his  nails.  It  in- 
cludes a  spade  as  well  as  factory  plant  that  has  cost  millions; 
it  includes  everything  laid  out  in  education  or  training.  We 
might  as  well  talk  of  emancipating  ourselves  from  the  tyranny 
of  food  or  air.  Every  co-operative  association  must  have 
some  capital  to  begin  with,  either  of  its  own  or  borrowed,  the 
lender,  in  the  latter  case,  representing  the  power  of  large 
capital  just  as  much  as  any  employer.  The  aggregation  of 
great  masses  of  capital  in  one  man's  hands  is  a  social  danger, 
and  one  against  which  legislators  ought,  by  all  fair  means,  to 
guard,  though  it  is  sometimes  not  without  a  good  aspect;  wit- 
ness the  New  York  Central  Eailroad,  which  could  hardly  have 
been  brought  to  its  present  state  by  managers  under  the  neces- 
sity of  providing  an  equally  large  dividend  every  year.  But 
the  operation  of  the  joint-stock  principle,  it  seems,  is  produc- 
ing a  gradual  change  in  this  respect.  It  will  often  be  found 
that  the  rate  of  profit  made  by  a  great  capitalist  is  far  from 
excessive,  though  his  total  gains  maybe  large.  Mr.  Brassey's 
total  gains  were  large,  but  the  rate  did  not  exceed  three  per 
cent,  on  the  outlay,^  while  it  is  very  certain  that  without  him 
ten  thousand  workmen,  destitute  of  capital,  scientific  skill, 
and  powers  of  command,  could  not  have  built  the  Victoria 
Bridge.  Co-operative  farming  seems  to  hold  out  more  hope 
than  co-operative  manufactures.  Still  it  Avould  need  capital 
and  a  head. 

In  fact,  what  the  Socialist  demands  is  not  that  the  agency 
of  capital  should  be  abolished,  but  that  the  sole  capitalist 
should  be  the  State.  The  State  is  the  government.  Govern- 
ment consists  of  men ;  and  we  have  to  ask  ourselves  whether 
by  XJutting  all  the  capital  into  the  hands  of  these  men  and 
making  them  arbiters  of  all  employment  we  should  greatly 
improve  upon  things  as  they  are  now. 

To  get  rid  of  competition,  and  substitiite  for  it  fraternity 
among  workers,  is  the  other  aim  of  co-operation.  But  the 
co-operative  societies  must  compete  with  each  other,  while, 
as    buyers,  having   regard   to   cheapness    in  their  purchases, 

1  See  Life  and  Labours  of  Mr.  Brassey,  by  Arthur  Helps.     Page  158. 


SOCIAL  AND    INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  27 

they  will  themselves  be  always  ratifying  the  principle  of  com- 
petition, and,  at  the  same  time,  that  of  paying  the  workman 
not  on  the  fraternal  principle,  but  according  to  the  amount 
and  value  of  his  work.  No  co-operative  association  pays 
philanthropic  prices  for  its  goods  or  philanthropic  wages  to  its 
clerks  and  porters.  Every  heart  must  be  touched  by  frater- 
nity and  wish  that  co-operation  could  take  the  place  of  com- 
petition, which,  in  its  grinding  severity,  is  too  like  many  other 
things  in  this  hard  world.  But,  after  all,  choose  any  manu- 
factured article,  consider  the  multitude  of  people  who  in  vari- 
ous trades  and  different  countries  have  co-operated  in  the  pro- 
duction, yet  have  not  competed  with  each  other,  and  it  will  be 
seen  that,  even  as  things  are,  there  is  more  of  co-operation 
than  of  competition  among  the  workers. 

Co-operative  stores  have  nothing  but  a  misleading  name  in 
common  with  co-operative  works.  They  simply  bring  the 
consumer  into  direct  relation  with  the  producer,  and  give  him 
the  benefit  of  wholesale  prices,  which  may  be  perfectly  well 
done,  so  long  as  the  officers  of  the  association  can  be  trusted 
to  exercise  for  the  society  the  same  degree  of  skill  and  integ- 
rity in  the  selection  of  goods  which  the  retail  tradesman  exer- 
cises for  himself.  Retail  establishments,  however,  of  the 
ordinary  kind,  but  on  a  large  scale,  like  that  of  the  late  A.  T. 
Stewart,  in  New  York,  with  low  prices,  and,  best  of  all, 
ready-money  payment,  afford  the  practical  benefits  of  co- 
operation. If  they  absorb  the  small  and  struggling  retailer, 
converting  him  into  a  shopman  or  a  clerk,  is  he  the  worse  for 
the  change?  A  blessing,  however,  waits  on  every  device  — 
co-operation,  profit-sharing,  or  whatever  it  may  be  —  which 
promises  to  efface  the  fatal  line  on  the  opposite  sides  of 
which  employer  and  employed  now  glower  like  hostile  forces  at 
each  other.  While  that  sharp  economical  demarcation  and  the 
sharp  social  demarcation  which  goes  with  it  continue  to  exist, 
there  is  little  hope  of  secure  peace. 

From  the  coercive  action  of  Trade-Unionism  and  from 
strikes,  again,  too  much  seems  to  have  been  expected  by  the 
workingman.     They  have   not  seldom    enabled  him  to  make 


28  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

a  fairer  bargain  with  the  master,  and  they  are  perfectly  law- 
ful; though  it  is  daily  becoming  more  apparent  that  the  com- 
munity, to  save  itself  from  the  misuse  of  Unionist  power, 
must  steadfastly  guard  the  liberties  of  the  Non-union  men. 
But  it  is  easy  to  exaggerate  the  extent  to  which  wages  can  be 
raised  by  strikes.  The  screw  may  be  put  upon  the  master, 
but  it  cannot  be  put  upon  the  community;  and  it  is  the  com- 
munity, not  the  master,  that  is  the  real  employer.  The  com- 
munity which  buys  the  goods  ultimately  settles  the  price,  and 
thereby  finally  determines  the  wages  of  tlie  producers,  not- 
withstanding any  momentary  extortion;  nor  can  it  in  the 
end  be  constrained,  by  striking,  to  give  more  than  it  thinks 
fit  and  can  afford.  The  workman  himself  who  strikes  buys 
everything  as  cheap  as  he  can,  and  in  so  doing  he  is  keeping 
down  the  wages  of  those  Avhose  labour  produces  the  article  to 
the  lowest  point  in  his  power.  By  strikes,  carried  beyond  a 
certain  point,  capital  may  be  driven  away,  find  the  trade  may 
be  ruined,  as  trades  have  been  ruined,  but  the  rate  of  wages 
will  not  be  raised.  The  master,  though  he  is  the  immediate 
employer,  is  the  agent  through  whom  the  community  pays  the 
workmen.  To  the  men,  his  commercial  relation  is  at  bottom 
that  of  a  partner,  taking  out  of  the  earnings  of  the  business 
the  share  which  is  due,  or  deemed  to  be  due,  for  capital,  risk, 
and  guidance.  Masters  are  beginning  to  mark  this  fact  in  a 
kindly  way,  by  giving  shares  in  the  concern  or  premiums  to 
the  men,  while  they  retain  the  guidance  in  their  own  hands. 
If  the  employer  is  taking  more  than  his  share,  strikes  may 
rectify  the  injustice.  But  what  is  his  share  must  be  deter- 
mined, not  by  the  profits  of  a  particular  employer  at  a  par- 
ticular moment,  but  by  the  general  balance,  taking  good  years 
with  bad,  of  the  profits  and  losses  of  the  employers  in  the 
trade.  Mr.  Brassey's  losses  in  one  jeav  were  so  heavy  that 
his  property  of  every  kind  was  largely  committed,  and  there 
were  times,  we  are  told,  at  which,  if  he  had  died,  he  would 
have  been  found  a  comparatively  poor  man. 

Strikers  should  never  forget  that  they  are  themselves  buyers 
as  well   as   producers,  and,  therefore,  employers   as  well  as 


SOCIAL  AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  29 

employed;  so  that  if  tliey  can  strike  against  the  rest  of  the 
community,  the  other  trades  can  strike  against  them,  and 
wages  being  thus  raised  all  round,  nobody  will  be  the  gainer. 
They  ought  also  to  remember  that  they  are  parts  of  an  indus- 
trial organism,  on  the  well-being  of  which  as  a  whole  that  of 
all  its  members  depends,  and  which  is  deranged  as  a  whole  by 
the  disturbance  of  any  portion  of  it.  A  strike  in  one  section 
of  a  trade  throws  out  of  work  numbers  of  men,  women,  and 
children  in  the  other  sections.  A  strike  in  certain  depart- 
ments, such  as  that  of  railways  or  coal  mines,  will  stop  the 
wheels  of  commerce  and  industry;  in  others,  it  will  cause 
incalculable  loss  and  suffering,  while  in  all  cases  a  share  of 
tlie  loss  must  come  back  through  the  general  market  on  the 
striker.  What  would  the  artisan  say  if  when  he  had  been 
hurt  by  a  machine  the  surgeon  were  to  put  his  head  out  of 
window  and  say  the  surgeons  were  on  strike? 

Artisans  are  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  themselves  exclu- 
sively as  workingmen.  Everybody  who  is  not  idle  is  a  work- 
ingman,  whether  he  works  with  his  brain  or  with  his  hands, 
and  whatever  part  he  may  play  in  the  service  of  a  varied  and 
complex  civilisation. 

Manual  labour  is  also  taught  to  believe  that  all  wealth  is 
produced  by  it  and  of  right  belongs  to  it.  Has  nothing  come 
down  to  it  from  the  past?  Is  the  whole  machinery  of  com- 
merce, national  and  international,  is  the  whole  frame  of  civili- 
sation the  mere  product  of  manual  labour  ?  Suppose  a  body 
of  workingmen  were  set  down  in  a  country  by  themselves, 
with  no  inheritance  from  the  past,  no  capital,  no  guidance,  no 
instruments  of  production  otlier  than  their  own  hands,  would 
the  extinction  of  poverty  be  the  result  ? 

We  may  relegate  political  economy  to  Saturn,  but  we  shall 
find  that  it  will  return.  Malthus  will  return;  not  the  im- 
moral ogre  painted  by  fancy,  but  the  perfectly  moral  and 
benevolent  observer,  who  ])ointed  out  a  most  important  fact, 
though  he  overlooked  limitations.  If  the  number  of  guests 
at  the  table  of  life  is  increased  without  limit,  each  man's  share 
of  the  feast  must  be  diminished  or  some  must  go  unfed.     If 


30  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

by  the  growth  of  the  artisan  population  the  labour  market 
is  overcrowded,  strike  as  often  as  you  will,  there  cannot  be 
employment  with  good  wages  for  all.  The  idea  that  multipli- 
cation of  labourers,  without  increase  of  the  natural  means  of 
production,  will  increase  the  produce  seems  to  possess  some 
minds,  but  it  scarcely  needs  confutation.  Let  them  try  the 
experiment.  See  whether  by  dumping  a  thousand  Socialists 
on  a  hundred  acres  of  land  you  can  increase  the  yield  so  that 
they  shall  all  be  fed.  A  heavy  responsibility  is  incurred 
by  agitators,  lay  or  clerical,  who  mislead  the  people  on  this 
subject. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  these  unhappy  conflicts  between 
employer  and  employed  have  given  birth  to  a  set  of  men  who 
subsist  by  industrial  war.  In  the  journals  and  speeches  of 
these  men  nothing  is  said  about  the  improvement  which  the 
artisan  might  make  in  his  OAvn  condition  by  thrift,  temperance, 
and  husbandry  of  his  means ;  he  is  told  only  of  the  advantage 
which  he  might  gain  by  industrial  revolution.  Nor  is  any- 
thing said  about  the  efforts  which  undeniably  are  being  made 
by  the  employer  and  by  society  at  large  to  raise  the  lot  of  the 
artisan.  Before  the  men  themselves  the  hope  of  rising  into  a 
higher  grade  of  industry  is  not  set.  They  are  led  to  regard 
themselves  as  destined  to  the  end  of  their  days  to  be  members 
of  a  union  of  wage-earners  always  doing  battle  with  their 
masters.  The  artisan  is  always  the  "  toiler, "  the  other  classes 
are  "spoilers,"  and  the  drift  of  the  preaching  is  that  the 
spoilers  ought  to  be  made  to  disgorge,  and  are  lucky  if  they 
escape  condign  punishment. 

Capitalists  and  the  wealthy  class,  it  seems  to  be  assumed, 
whatever  is  done  to  them,  will  always  be  in  existence  and  Avill 
present  themselves  like  sheep  for  an  annual  shearing.  But 
these  sheep,  once  sheared,  will  grow  no  more  wool.  Men  will 
not  earn  and  save  wealth  for  the  confiscator.  The  store  once 
rifled  and  the  wealth  spent,  as  by  the  common  workman  it 
probably  would  be,  in  meat,  drink,  and  tobacco,  there  would 
remain  labour  without  capital  or  guidance,  a  demoralised 
industry,  and  probably  lack  of  bread. 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  31 

Then  there  is  the  hope  of  vastly  increasing  the  wealth  of 
the  world  in  general,  and  that  of  the  poorer  class  in  partic- 
ular, by  means  of   Inconvertible   Paper  Currency.     Of  this 
illusion,  it  may  be  truly  said,  that  not  the  wildest  dreams  of 
the  alchemist,  or  of  those  adventurers  who  sailed  in  quest 
of  an  Eldorado,  were  a  more  extraordinary  instance  of  the 
human   power  of   self-deception.     Among  the  champions  of 
paper  currency  there  are,  no  doubt,  many  who  know  too  well 
what  they  are  about,  and  whose  aim  is  to  defraud  the  creditor, 
public  and  private,  by  paying  off  the  debt  with  depreciated 
paper,  an  operation  the  SAveetness  of  which,  in  the  United 
States,  under  the  Legal  Tender  Act,  has  been  already  tasted. 
But  there  are  also  honest  enthusiasts,  not  a  few,  who  sincerely 
believe  that  a  commercial  millennium  could   be   opened  by 
merely   issuing   a   flood   of    promissory   notes    and   refusing 
payment.      This    prodigious    fallacy   has    its   origin   in   the 
equivocal  use  of   a  word.     We  have  got  into  the  habit  of 
applying  the  name  money  to  bank-notes  as  well  as  to  coin. 
The  paper  being  current  as  well  as  the  coin,  we  fancy  that 
with  both   alike  we   buy  goods.     But   the  truth  is  that  we 
buy  only  with  the  coin,  to  which,  alone,  the  name  money 
ought  to  be   applied.     The   bank-note   is   an   instrument   of 
credit,  like  a  cheque;    not  money  itself,  but   an   order  and 
a  security  for  a  sum  of  money,  which,  the  note  being  payable 
on  demand,  can  be  drawn  by  the  holder  from  the  bank  when 
he    pleases.      When   a   man    receives   a   bank-note,    he   has 
virtually  so  much   coin   as   the   note   represents   put   to  his 
account   at    the   bank   by   which   the   note   is    issued.      The 
note  is  a  promissory  note,  and  the   bank  in  increasing   its 
circulation,  like  a  trader  who   increases  the  number   of  his 
promissory  notes,  adds,  not  to  its  assets,  but  to  its  liabili- 
ties.    In  the  slip  of   paper  there  is  no  value  or  purchasing 
power ;  nor  can  any  legislature  put  value  or  purchasing  power 
into  it.     Greenbackers  point  to  the  case  of  postage  stamps, 
into  which,  they  say,  value  has  been  put  by  legislation.     Ikit 
a  postage  stamp  is  a  receipt   for  a  certain  sum  paid  to  the 
government  in  coin,  and,  in  consideration  of  which,  the  gov- 


32  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

ernment  undertakes  to  carry  the  letter  to  which  the  receipt 
is  affixed. 

No  paper  money,  it  is  believed,  has  ever  yet  been  issued 
except  in  the  promissory  form,  pledging  the  issuer  to  pay  in 
coin  upon  demand,  so  that  each  note  hitherto  has  borne  upon 
the  face  of  it  a  flat  denial  and  abjuration  of  the  Greenback 
theory.  Suppose  the  promissory  form  to  be  discarded,  and  the 
bill  to  be  simply  inscribed  "one  dollar,"  as  the  Fiat-money 
men  propose,  what  would  "dollar"  mean?  It  would  mean, 
say  the  Greenbackers,  a  certain  proportion  of  the  wealth  of 
the  country,  upon  which,  as  an  aggregate,  the  currency  would 
be  based.  "What  proportion?  Let  us  know  what  \ve  have  in 
our  purse,  and  what  we  can  get  in  exchange  for  the  paper 
dollar  on  presentation;  otherwise  commerce  cannot  go  on. 
This,  however,  is  not  the  most  serious  difficulty.  The  most 
serious  difficulty  is  that  while  the  coin,  which  a  convertible 
bank-note  represents,  is  the  property  of  the  bank  of  issue,  the 
aggregate  wealth  of  the  country  is  not  the  property  of  the 
government,  but  of  a  multitude  of  private  owners.  The  gov- 
ernment is  the  possessor  of  nothing  except  the  public  domain 
and  a  taxing  power,  the  exercise  of  which  it  is  bound  to  con- 
fine to  the  actual  necessities  of  the  State.  In  issuing  an  order 
for  a  loaf  of  bread,  a  coat,  or  a  leg  of  mutton,  to  be  taken  from 
the  possessions  of  the  community  at  large,  it  would  be  simply 
signing  a  ticket  of  spoliation. 

Ask  the  Fiat-money  men  whether  they  are  prepared  to  take 
their  own  money  for  taxes,  and  you  Avill  get  an  ambiguous 
reply.  Some  of  them  have  an  inkling  of  the  fatal  truth,  and 
answer  that  the  taxes  must  be  paid  in  gold.  The  faith  of 
others  is  more  robust.  But  it  has  been  reasonably  inquired 
why  the  government,  if  it  can  with  a  printing  machine  coin 
money  at  its  will,  should  pester  citizens  for  taxes  at  all. 

That  the  foreigner  will  take  the  national  Fiat-money,  nobody 
seems  to  pretend.  Yet,  if  there  is  real  value  in  it,  why  should 
he  not  ?  All  tlie  better,  say  the  Greenbackers ;  if  he  will  not 
take  our  money,  he  will  have  to  take  our  goods.  Then  you 
will  have  to  take  his  goods,  and  the  commercial  world  will  be 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  33 

reduced  again  to  barter  without  a  common  measure  of  value, 
whicli  would  not  be  a  great  advance  in  convenience  or  in  civi- 
lisation. Besides,  trade  is  not  merely  a  direct  interchange  of 
commodities  between  two  countries;  it  is  circulation  of  them 
among  all  countries,  the  United  States  sending  cotton  to 
England,  England  calico  to  China,  and  China  tea  to  the 
United  States,  which,  without  a  common  standard  of  value, 
would  be  next  to  impossible. 

In  one  sense,  of  course,  government  can,  by  its  fiat,  put 
value  into  paper.  It  can  make  the  paper  legal  tender  for 
debts ;  in  other  words,  it  can  issue  licenses  of  repudiation,  and 
these  licenses  will  retain  a  value  till  all  existing  debts  have 
been  repudiated,  and  all  existing  creditors  cheated ;  but  from 
that  time  their  value  will  cease,  since  everybody,  from  the 
moment  of  their  issue,  will  refuse  to  advance  money,  or  sell 
on  credit. 

In  all  the  cases  known  to  economical  history  in  Avhich 
governments  have  issued  inconvertible  paper,  depreciation 
has  ensued,  and  such  value  as  the  paper  has  retained  has 
been  in  proportion  to  the  hope  of  resumption.  When  cash 
payments  were  suspended  in  England,  at  the  crisis  of  the 
French  war,  the  depreciation  was  comparatively  small,  because 
tlie  hope  of  resumption  was  strong.  The  guillotine  was 
plied  in  vain  to  arrest  the  rapid  fall  of  French  Assignats, 
though  these  were  not  absolutely  fiat-money,  but  bonds  secured 
on  the  national  domains,  which  were  good  security  for  the 
original  issue.  Confederate  paper  money,  with  the  defeat  of 
the  Confederacy,  lost  the  whole  of  its  value,  or  retained  a 
shadow  of  it  only  through  stock-jobbing  illusions.  In  San 
Domingo  a  gentleman,  having  tendered  a  silver  American 
dollar  in  payment  for  his  coffee,  received  from  the  surprised 
and  delighted  keeper  of  the  coffee-house  an  armful  of  paper 
change.  Wasliington,  while  he  was  saving  his  country,  was 
being  robbed  through  the  operation  of  inconvertible  paper 
currency  of  part  of  his  private  estate ;  and  the  effects,  moral 
and  political,  as  well  as  commercial,  of  the  system,  during  the 
Eevolutionary  War,  were  such  that  Tom  Paine,  no  timid  or 


34  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

squeamish  publicist,  recommended  that  death  should  be  made 
the  penalty  of  any  proposal  to  renew  it.  In  all  cases  where 
specie  payment  has  been  resumed,  the  State,  in  addition  to  the 
loss  incurred  through  disturbance  and  demoralisation  of  com- 
merce, has  paid  heavily  for  the  temporary  suspension,  because 
its  credit  has  been  suspended  at  the  same  time,  and  it  has  had 
to  borrow  on  terms  worse  than  those  which  it  could  have 
obtained  in  the  money  market,  had  its  integrity  been  preserved. 
The  value  is  in  the  gold.  It  is  in  exchange  for  the  gold 
that,  whenever  a  sale  takes  place,  the  commodity  is  given. 
Trade  was  originally  barter,  and,  in  the  sense  of  being  always 
an  interchange  of  things  deemed  really  equivalent  in  value, 
it  is  barter  still.  I  give  a  cow  for  three  sheep,  and  then 
give  the  three  sheep  for  a  plough,  which  it  is  my  ultimate 
object  to  purchase.  What  the  three  sheep  here  do  in  a  single 
transaction,  is  done  in  transactions  generally  by  gold.  This 
fundamental  and  vital  fact  is  obscured  by  the  language  even 
of  some  economists  who  are  sound  in  principle,  but  who  speak 
of  the  precious  metals  as  though  their  value  were  conven- 
tional, and  like  that  of  symbols  or  counters.  It  is  nothing  of 
the  kind.  The  first  man  who  gave  anything  in  exchange  for 
gold  or  silver,  must  have  done  so  because  he  deemed  gold  or 
silver  really  valuable ;  so  does  the  last.  The  precious  metals 
probably  attracted  at  first  by  their  beauty,  their  rarity,  and 
their  natural  qualities;  then,  they  were  felt  to  have  special 
advantages  as  mediums  of  exchange  and  universal  standards 
of  value,  on  account  of  their  durability,  their  uniformity, 
their  portability,  their  inimitability,  their  capability  of  receiv- 
ing a  stamp,  of  being  divided  with  exactness,  and  of  being 
fused  again  with  ease.  Thus  they,  and,  at  least  in  the  chief 
commercial  countries,  gold,  displaced  all  the  other  articles, 
such  as  copper,  iron,  leather,  shells,  which,  in  primitive 
times,  or  under  pressure  of  circumstances,  were  adopted  as 
mediums  of  exchange  and  standards  of  value.  As  was  said  in 
the  time  of  Edward  VI.  in  a  protest  against  the  debasement 
of  the  currency,  "  By  the  whole  consent  of  the  world  gold  and 
silver  have  gotten  the  estimation  above  all  other  metals,  as 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  35 

metest  to  make  money  and  be  conserved  as  a  treasure :  which 
estimation  cannot  be  altered  by  a  part  or  little  corner  of  the 
world,  though  the  estimation  were  had  but  on  a  fanciful  opin- 
ion, where  indeed  it  is  grounded  upon  good  reason,  according 
to  the  gifts  that  nature  hath  wrought  in  those  metals  whereby 
they  be  metest  to  use  for  exchange,  and  to  be  kept  for  a  treas- 
ure :  so  as  in  that  kind  they  have  gotten  the  sovereignty,  like 
as  for  other  purposes  other  metals  do  excel."  ^  But  the  prec- 
ious metals  have  now  the  additional  value  derived  from  imme- 
morial and  immutable  prescription,  which  would  render  it 
practically  impossible  to  oust  them,  even  if  a  substance  prom- 
ising greater  advantages  for  the  purpose  could  be  found.  The 
French  Republicans  tried  to  change  the  era,  and  make  chro- 
nology begin  with  the  first  year  of  the  Republic,  instead  of 
beginning  with  the  birth  of  Christ.  But  they  found  that  they 
were  pulling  at  a  tree,  the  roots  of  which  were  too  completely 
entwined  with  all  existing  customs  and  ideas  to  be  torn  up. 
It  would  not  be  less  dilficult  to  alter  the  medium  of  exchange 
and  standard  of  value  over  the  whole  commercial  world.  A 
value  which  is  moral,  or  dependent  on  opinion,  is  not  tlie  less 
real;  the  value  of  diamonds,  as  symbols  of  Avealth  and  rank, 
may  be  dependent,  not  only  on  opinion,  but  on  fancy,  yet  it  is 
real  so  long  as  it  lasts.  An  enormous  find  of  gold  would,  of 
course,  by  putting  an  end  to  its  rarity,  destroy  its  value ;  this 
is  a  risk  which  commerce  runs,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  be 
great.  Any  inconvenience  that  might  arise  from  the  bulk  and 
weight  of  the  precious  metals,  is  indefinitely  diminished, 
while  in  use  they  are  vastly,  and  in  an  increasing  degree, 
economised  by  the  employment  of  bank-notes  and  other  paper 
securities  for  gold,  which  are  currency,  though  money  they 
are  not.  Though  gold  has  been  the  basis  on  the  American 
continent,  in  twenty-five  years  which,  the  writer  has  passed 
there  he  has  only  once  seen  gold  in  circulation. 

There  ought  surely  to  be  no  such  thing  as  Legal  Tender, 
even  in  the  case  of  convertible  paper  currency,  either  on  the 
part  of  the  government  or  on  the  part  of  private  banks.     It  is 

1  See  Mr.  Richard  Bagley's  Ireland  under  the  Tudors,  Vol.  I.,  p.  371. 


36  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

plain  injustice  to  compel  us  to  take  anybody's  paper  as  gold. 
If  the  government  is  solvent  and  its  security  is  good,  the 
paper  is  sure  to  be  taken  in  preference  to  carrying  about  a 
weight  of  specie.  Legal  Tender  confuses  the  ideas  of  the 
people,  shakes  commercial  morality,  and  prepares  the  way  for 
the  attempts  of  the  Fiat-money  man,  and  for  all  the  mischief 
which  they  breed. 

Of  Bimetallism  we  must  speak  with  respect,  since  it  has 
such  an  advocate  as  Mr.  Grenfell.  Yet  the  answer  seems 
to  have  been  given  with  force  as  well  as  with  pungency 
by  Lowe:  "I  congratulate  you  on  the  discovery  of  tlie 
philosopher's  stone.  If  saying  that  one  metal  shall  be  equal 
in  value  to  another  can  make  it  equal,  you  are  fairly  entitled 
to  claim  to  have  discovered  the  secret  of  boundless  riches. 
But  why  bimetallism  only?  Why  not  trimetallism  or  quadri- 
metallism?  It  is  as  easy  to  say  that  copper  is  equal  to  gold 
as  silver."  Gold  and  silver  are  two  commodities,  each  of 
which  has  its  value  regulated  by  qualities  and  circumstances 
over  which  legislatures  have  no  control.  Relative  or  pro- 
portional value  can  no  more  be  legislated  into  a  commodity 
than  can  absolute  value.  By  the  act  of  a  government  or  a 
combination  of  governments,  silver  or  any  other  metal  may 
authoritatively  be  made  legal  tender  in  a  certain  proportion  to 
gold,  so  far  as  the  power  of  that  government  or  combination 
of  governments  extends.  This  may  be  done  with  greater  ease 
if  the  community  or  communities  are  not  in  active  commer- 
cial intercourse  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  To  have  two 
standards  is  to  have  none.  It  has  been  said  tliat  it  matters 
not  whether  cloth  is  bought  by  the  yard  or  by  the  ell.  It 
matters,  however,  whether  you  have  one  yard  measure  or  two, 
one  of  three  feet  and  the  other  of  three  feet  and  a  quarter.  It 
was  proposed,  the  other  day,  in  America,  to  keep  up  the  price 
of  silver  by  making  all  the  servants  of  the  government  wear 
silver  buttons.  It  was  asked  in  reply  whether  the  servants 
were  to  pay  for  the  buttons,  or  the  public;  as,  in  the  first  case 
it  would  be  a  tax  on  the  servants,  in  the  second,  on  the  pub- 


SOCIAL   AND    INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  37 

lie,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Silver  men,  and  the  money  might 
as  well  have  been  handed  to  them  at  once.  But  we  should 
also  have  been  told  why  the  public  was  interested  in  keeping 
up  the  price  of  silver  any  more  than  the  price  of  salt.  It  was 
mainly  the  influence  of  the  Silver  men,  not  the  prevalence  of 
the  bimetallic  theory,  that  carried  the  Silver  Bill.  The  mar- 
ket is  flooded  with  silver,  and  if  silver  were  monetised,  as  it 
abounds  in  the  mines,  there  would  probably  be  a  deluge,  in 
which  all  proportion  between  the  legal  and  the  commercial 
value  of  the  metal  would  be  lost.  It  is  mournful  that  an 
industry  should  be  depressed,  but  of  all  ways  of  relieving  it 
the  most  costly  is  derangement  of  the  currency.  If  the  tobacco 
interest  is  depressed,  are  we  to  remonetise  tobacco,  which  once 
was  currency  in  Virginia?  Combined  with  the  silver  interest 
in  the  agitation  was  the  recrudescence  of  Greenbackism  and 
the  desire  of  the  debtor  class,  especially  the  heavily  mort- 
gaged, for  an  easy  mode  of  paying  their  debts.  Nor  was  the 
South  unwilling  to  see  a  partial  repudiation  of  the  Federal 
war  debt.  The  struggle  against  Greenbackism  after  the  war 
was  severe,  though  honesty  and  a  regard  for  national  credit 
prevailed.  In  the  Silver  law  and  its  consequences  we  see  one 
more  proof  of  the  formidable  influence  of  sectional  interests 
in  party  government  when  parties  are  nearly  balanced.  In 
the  financial  crisis  which  has  followed  Ave  see,  in  some  meas- 
ure at  least,  the  penalties  of  tampering  with  the  currency. 
With  the  movement  of  the  Silver  men  and  Greenbackers  in 
the  United  States  concurred  that  of  the  Civil  Servants  in 
India,  and  a  great  point  was  made  by  Bimetallists  of  this  con- 
currence. But  in  regard  to  such  a  question  as  a  change  in  the 
world's  currency,  the  pressure  of  two  great  special  interests 
was  surely  a  warning  to  be  cautious.  The  interests  them- 
selves are  part  of  the  commercial  world,  and  will  lose  in  the 
end  by  derangement  of  the  currency,  though  they  may  be 
relieved  for  a  time.  Adherence  to  the  gold  standard  does 
not  preclude  the  "free  coinage"  of  silver  to  any  extent  for 
auxiliary  use,  the  range  of  which  each  country  may  determine 
for  itself. 


38  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

With  belief  in  Fiat -money  are  often  combined  fancies  about 
the  tyranny  of  banks,  and  a  desire  to  wreck  and  phinder  them 
by  an  exercise  of  the  legislative  power,  or  to  seize  the  busi- 
ness and  its  profits,  and  place  them  in  the  hands  of  the 
government.  Especially  it  is  proposed  to  take  away  the  cir- 
culation of  bank-paper,  and  the  profits  belonging  to  it.  Banks 
are  vital  organs  of  a  commercial  community,  which,  in  seek- 
ing their  destruction,  would  show  as  much  wisdom  as  a  man 
would  show  in  seeking  the  destruction  of  his  own  heart  or 
lungs.  They  perform  for  us  three  indispensable  functions, 
whereof  the  first  is  the  safe-keeping  of  our  money,  which,  other- 
wise, we  should  have  to  keep  in  our  houses  at  our  own  risk,  as 
was  the  practice  of  Mr.  Pepys  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  and 
as  is  still  the  practice  of  the  French  peasant,  who  hides  his 
hoard  in  a  hole  in  the  wall.  The  second  function  is  that 
of  economising  gold,  and  at  the  same  time  sparing  us  the 
inconvenience  of  carrying  about  a  mass  of  specie,  by  issuing 
bank-notes,  which,  being  secured  upon  the  whole  estate  of  a 
chartered  corporation,  may,  in  general,  be  accepted  without 
scrutiny,  and  thus  form  a  paper  currency,  though  it  can  never 
be  too  often  repeated  that  they  are  not  money.  It  is  hard 
that  those  who  are  always  declaiming  against  metallic  money 
for  its  cumbrousness,  and  because,  as  they  say,  it  lies  dead 
and  inert,  should  fail  to  acknowledge  the  service  rendered  by 
the  banks  of  issue,  in  thus  giving  the  metal  wings,  and  mak- 
ing it  do  its  work  for  commerce  in  a  thousand  places,  while  it 
is  locally  laid  up  in  one.  The  third  function,  which  is  the 
offspring  of  comparatively  modern  times,  is  that  of  enabling 
us  to  trade  on  credit.  This  the  banks  do  by  discounting  paper 
for  the  trader,  whose  resources  they  have  satisfactorily  exam- 
ined, and  whose  commercial  character  they  approve.  In  this 
way,  they  both  substantiate  and  regulate  credit,  neither  of 
which  could  be  done  without  their  agency,  by  the  mere  re- 
presentations of  the  trader  himself,  or  by  private  inquiry  into 
his  means.  To  stop  the  action  of  the  banks  in  this  depart- 
ment would  be  to  stop  trading  on  credit.  Credit,  like  capital, 
is   becoming   a   monster,  and   if   there  were    no    trustworthy 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  39 

means  of  measiirmg,  regulating,  raid  restricting  it,  a  monster 
it  would  be. 

The  financial  destructive  grudges  the  bank  the  profits  of 
its  circulation,  and  wishes  to  transfer  them  to  that  which 
he  calls  the  State,  but  which,  it  is  necessary  always  to  bear  in 
mind,  is  in  fact  simply  the  men  who  compose  the  government. 
Why  not  grudge  the  bank  the  profits  of  the  discount  busi- 
ness, and  propose  to  transfer  these  to  government  in  the  same 
way?  Why  not  do  the  same  with  all  other  trades  by  which 
profit,  and  often  unfair  profit,  is  made?  Why  not  make  the 
issuing  of  bills  of  exchange  or  promissory  notes,  why  not 
make  the  supplying  of  the  community  with  clothes  or  shoes, 
a  monopoly  in  the  hands  of  the  government?  What  is  there 
about  the  money  trade  in  particular  to  make  us  desire  that  it 
should  be  put  into  the  power  of  the  politicians?  Judging  by 
experience,  it  would  be  about  the  last  branch  of  commerce  on 
which  we  should  wish  them  to  lay  their  grasp. 

It  is  the  business  of  government  to  put  its  stamp  on  the 
coin,  in  order  to  assure  the  community  that  the  coin  is  of  the 
right  weight  and  fineness.  This  public  authorities  alone  can 
satisfactorily  do,  and  they  may  now  be  trusted  to  do  it, 
though,  in  former  times,  kings  were  in  the  habit  of  defraud- 
ing the  subject  by  debasing  the  coin.  But  here  the  duty  and 
the  usefulness  of  government  in  regard  to  the  currency  seem 
to  end.  The  volume  of  bank-notes  issued  ought  to  be  regu- 
lated, like  that  of  all  other  commercial  paper,  by  the  require- 
ments of  the  day,  that  is,  by  the  number  and  amount  of  the 
transactions;  and  it  will  be  so  regulated  while  it  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  banks,  which  will  not  fail  to  issue  all  the  bills 
for  which  there  is  real  need,  while,  if  they  issue  more  than 
are  needed,  the  bills  will  begin  to  come  back  upon  their  hands. 
But  government  can  no  more  decide  what  amount  of  bank- 
paper  is  required  than  it  can  decide  how  many  promissory 
notes  or  bills  of  exchange  or  dock  warrants  ought,  at  any  given 
moment,  to  be  afloat.  Setting  government  to  settle  the  circu- 
lation of  paper  is  having  the  barometer  regulated  Ijy  superior 
wisdom  without  reference  to  atmospheric  pressure. 


40  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

The  Bank  Charter  Act  of  Peel  and  Overstone  was  the  off- 
spring of  the  alarm  caused  by  the  failure  of  a  number  of 
private  banks  of  issue.  With  deference  to  such  high  authori- 
ties, some  would  say  that  it  might  have  been  better  to  adopt 
proper  safeguards  in  the  way  of  inspection  and  other  precau- 
tionary regulations.  The  Act  has  gone  into  operation  only  to 
a  limited  extent,  having  put  an  end  to  the  existence  of  a  few 
only  of  the  private  banks  of  issue,  all  of  which  it  was  intended 
gradually  to  extinguish.  It  has  been  thrice  suspended  at  a 
commercial  crisis,  each  suspension  being  attended  with  all  the 
inconvenience  and  injustice  of  arbitrary  intervention;  and  its 
general  effect,  whenever  tightness  is  felt,  appears  to  be  to 
produce  a  sort  of  nervous  constriction,  which  itself  tends  to 
the  acceleration  of  a  crisis. 

Ordinary  banks,  being  private  institutions,  are  amenable  to 
the  law;  in  truth,  there  is  nothing  of  which  the  politicians 
are  fonder  than  harassing  them  with  legislation.  But  a, party 
government,  supported  by  a  majority,  is  its  own  law,  and  can 
do  whatever  its  need  or  its  cupidity  inspires,  without  regard 
to  the  interests  of  commerce.  Even  the  most  commercial  of 
such  governments,  when  in  want  of  money,  does  not  shrink 
from  issuing  legal  tender  currency,  without  reference  to  the 
state  of  the  money  market.  The  American  Silver  Bill,  again, 
shows  what  we  might  have  to  expect  of  the  power  to  which 
it  is  demanded  that  the  functions  of  the  banks  should  be  trans- 
ferred. Would  commerce  have  an  hour  of  security,  or  be  able 
to  conduct  any  of  her  operations  in  peace  and  confidence,  if 
the  hand  of  demagogism  were  all  the  time  upon  her  heart- 
strings? 

Bank-paper,  though  not  legal  tender,  cannot,  in  the  ordi- 
nary course  of  trade,  be  refused,  unless  there  is  some  public 
reason  for  mistrusting  the  solvency  of  the  bank.  This  is  the 
ground  for  subjecting  this  particular  class  of  commercial  com- 
panies to  special  legislation;  and  it  is  the  sole  ground;  there 
would,  otherwise,  be  no  justification  for  an  interference  with 
the  trade  in  money  more  than  with  any  other  trade.  Nor  has 
a  government  the  slightest  right  to  compel  the  banks  to  take 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  41 

its  l)onds,  as  the  condition  of  permitting  tliem  to  pursue  an 
honest  and  indispensable  traffic,  or  to  levy  tribute  upon  them 
in  any  other  way.  On  the  other  hand,  the  stockholders  of 
banks  must  not  suppose  that  they,  of  all  investors  in  com- 
mercial enterprises,  are  entitled  to  the  intervention  of  gov- 
ernment when  their  affairs  are  mismanaged  by  directors  of 
their  own  choosing.  If  they  invoke  such  aid,  they  will  once 
more  practically  point  the  moral  of  the  fable  of  the  horse  and 
the  stag. 

The  notion  that  society  is  an  organism  or  growth  must  not 
be  carried  too  far;  we  have  each  of  us  an  individual  person- 
ality and  a  power  of  acting  on  the  general  frame,  which  the 
parts  of  an  organism  have  not.  But  this  view  is,  at  least, 
nearer  the  truth  than  the  idea  which  underlies  all  Socialism, 
that  society  can  be  metamorphosed  by  the  action  of  the  State, 
an  imaginary  power  outside  all  personalities,  superior  to  all 
special  interests,  and  free  from  all  class  passions.  Nothing, 
indeed,  can  be  less  free  from  class  passions  than  the  move- 
ments which  have  been  so  far  passed  in  review.  Social  hatred 
is  a  bad  reformer,  and  the  struggles  to  which  it  has  given 
birth  have  almost  always  brought  to  the  community,  and  even 
to  the  most  suffering  members  of  it,  far  more  loss  than  gain. 

To  speak  of  Protection  would  be  opening  a  wide  subject, 
and  one  which  perhaps  scarcely  falls  within  the  scope  of  this 
paper.  There  are  men,  sensible  in  other  things,  who  imagine 
that  they  can  increase  the  wealth  of  a  country  by  taxation. 
So  long  as  governments  and  armaments  are  maintained  on  the 
present  scale  of  expenditure,  every  country  Avill  need  import 
duties,  and  must  have  its  tariff.  The  only  alternative,  at  all 
events,  is  direct  taxation,  with  the  inquisitorial  annoyance 
and  the  political  dangers  which  attend  it.  Absolute  free 
trade,  therefore,  is  at  present  out  of  the  question,  and  the 
different  tariffs  must  be  regulated  according  to  the  circum- 
stances and  the  special  industries  of  each  community.  Every 
nation  will  claim  this  right.  l']ngland,  wlio  has  her  tariff  like 
the  rest,  wisely  lets  in  free  the  raw  materials  of  her  special 


42  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

industries  and  the  food  of  her  innumerable  workmen,  while 
she  taxes  finished  articles  of  luxury,  such  as  tea,  wine,  and 
tobacco.  Free  traders,  British  free  traders,  especially,  have 
left  this  too  much  out  of  sight,  and  have  comjiromised  their 
theory  by  that  error.  But  that  taxation  can  add  to  Avealth, 
that  governments  can  increase  production  by  forcing  capital 
and  labour  out  of  their  natural  channels,  that  the  interest  of 
the  people  will  be  promoted  by  forbidding  them  to  buy  the 
best  and  cheapest  article  wherever  it  can  be  found,  are  notions 
which,  if  reason  did  not  sufficiently  confute  them,  have  been 
confuted  by  experience.  Under  the  free  system  the  industries 
of  England  have  been  developed,  and  her  wealth  has  increased 
out  of  proportion  to  the  growth  of  her  population,  and  to  an 
extent  perfectly  unrivalled.  The  verdict  of  economical  his- 
tory through  all  the  ages  is  the  same.  What  is  the  proper 
commercial  area  of  Protection,  Protectionists  have  omitted 
to  explain,  Nobody  proposes  to  draw  Customs  lines  across 
the  territory  of  any  nation,  and  the  commercial  advantages  of 
freedom  of  exchange  know  no  political  limit,  though  in  pass- 
ing from  nation  to  nation  fiscal  necessity  intervenes.  The 
workman  does  not  gain  b}''  Protection;  he  is  only  transferred 
to  an  artificial  industry  from  a  natural  industry,  which  would 
otherwise  develop  itself,  and  in  which,  as  it  would  be  more 
remunerative,  employment  would  be  more  abundant.  The 
master  manufacturer  is  the  only  man  who  gains ;  to  him  the 
community,  under  the  Protective  system,  pays  tribute ;  accord- 
ingly, in  countries  where  the  system  prevails,  he  is  generally 
a  Protectionist,  and  uses  not  argument  alone,  but  the  Lobby, 
and  influences  of  all  sorts,  to  keep  up  the  tariff;  he  will  even 
do  his  utmost  to  encourage  expenditure,  rather  than  that  the 
scale  of  duties  should  go  down.  Nor  can  he  be  much  blamed, 
when  the  government  has  induced  him  to  put  his  capital  into 
the  favoured  trade,  and  stake  his  future  on  the  continuance 
of  the  favour.  Political  or  social  motives  there  may  conceiva- 
bly be  for  Protection,  as  well  as  for  any  other  sacrifice  of 
commercial  interest,  such  as  war ;  but  the  commercial  sacrifice 
is  a  fact  which  cannot  be  denied.     To  foster  by  means  of  pro- 


SOCIAL   AND   INDUSTRIAL   REVOLUTION.  43 

tective  duties  or  bonuses  infant  industries,  which  may  after- 
wards sustain  themselves,  and  perhaps  draw  emigration  to  a 
new  country,  in  itself  might  be  a  rational  and  legitimate  pol- 
icy, if  the  nation  could  really  keep  the  experiment  in  its  own 
hands.  But  artificial  interests  are  created,  a  Ring  is  formed, 
and  the  nation  loses  control  over  its  tariff.  Such,  at  least,  is 
the  case  with  communities  governed  as  are  those  of  the  Ameri- 
can continent.  The  field  of  political  economy,  as  a  region  not 
in  the  air  but  on  the  earth,  and  the  tendencies,  capabilities,  and 
forces  of  society  with  which  the  economical  legislator  deals, 
must  be  treated  as  they  really  are. 

Steady  industry,  aided  by  the  ever-growing  powers  of  prac- 
tical science,  is  rapidly  augmenting  wealth.  Thrift  and  in- 
creased facilities  for  saving  and  for  the  employment  of  small 
capitals  will  promote  the  equality  of  distribution.  Let  gov- 
ernments see  that  labour  is  allowed  to  enjoy  its  full  earnings, 
untaxed  by  war,  waste,  or  iniquitous  tariffs.  The  best  of  all 
taxes,  it  has  been  truly  said,  is  the  least.  With  equal  truth 
it  may  be  said  that  the  best  of  all  governments  is  that  which 
has  least  occasion  to  govern. 


UTOPIAN    VISIONS. 


UTOPIAN  VISIONS.^ 

Among  other  signs  of  the  social  and  industrial  vinrest  of 
the  age  has  been  the  production  of  a  number  of  Utopias  such 
as  "The  Coming  Race,"  "News  from  Nowhere,"  "Caesar's 
Column,"  and  "Looking  Backward,"  the  last-named  being 
the  most  widely  circulated  and  popular  of  all.  As  the  rain- 
bow in  the  spray  of  Niagara  marks  a  cataract  in  the  river,  the 
appearance  of  Utopias  has  marked  cataracts  in  the  stream  of 
history.  That  of  More,  from  which  the  general  name  is 
taken,  and  that  of  Eabelais,  marked  the  fall  of  the  stream 
from  the  Middle  Ages  into  modern  times.  Plato's  "  Republic  " 
marked  the  catastrophe  of  Greek  republicanism,  though  it  is 
not  a  mere  Utopia,  but  a  great  treatise  on  morality,  and  even 
as  a  political  speculation  not  wholly  beyond  the  pale  of  what, 
a  Greek  citizen  might  have  regarded  as  practical  reform,  since 
it  is  in  its  main  features  an  idealisation  of  Sparta.  Visions 
of  reform  heralded  the  outbreak  of  Lollardism  and  the  Insur- 
rection of  the  Serfs.  The  fancies  of  Rousseau  and  Bernardin 
de  St.  Pierre  heralded  the  French  Revolution.  Rousseau's 
reveries,  be  it  observed,  not  only  failed  of  realisation,  but  gave 
hardly  any  sign  of  that  which  was  coming.  The  Jacobins 
canted  in  his  phrase,  but  they  returned  to  the  state  of  nature 
only  in  personal  filthiness,  in  brutality  of  manners,  and  in 
guillotining  Lavoisier  because  the  Republic  had  no  need  of 
chemists. 

There  is  a  general  feeling  abroad  that  the  stream  is  drawing 
near  a  cataract  now,  and  there  are  apparent  grounds  for  the 
surmise.     There  is  everywhere  in  the  social  frame  an  outward 

1  The  substance  of  this  paper  appeared  in  the  Forum  under  the  title 
of  "Prophets  of  Unrest." 

47 


48  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

unrest,  which  as  usual  is  the  sign  of  fundamental  change 
within.  Old  creeds  have  given  way.  The  masses,  the  arti- 
sans especially,  have  ceased  to  believe  that  the  existing  order 
of  society,  with  its  grades  of  rank  and  wealth,  is  a  divine 
ordinance  against  which  it  is  vain  to  rebel.  They  have  ceased 
to  believe  in  a  future  state,  in  which  Dives  and  Lazarus  are 
to  change  places.  Of  labour  journals  secularism  is  the  creed. 
Social  science,  if  it  is  to  take  the  place  of  religion  as  a  con- 
servative force,  has  not  yet  developed  itself  or  got  firm  hold 
of  the  popular  mind.  The  rivalry  of  parties  for  popular 
favour  has  made  suffrage  almost  universal.  The  poor  are 
freshly  possessed  of  political  power,  and  have  conceived  vague 
notions  of  the  changes  which,  by  exercising  it,  they  may  make 
in  their  own  favour.  They  are  just  in  that  twilight  of  educa- 
tion in  which  chimeras  stalk.  This  concurrence  of  social  and 
economical  with  political  and  religious  revolution  has  always 
been  fraught  with  danger.  Tlie  governing  classes,  unnerved 
by  scepticism,  have  lost  faith  in  the  order  wliich  they  repre- 
sent, and  are  timorous  and  inclined  to  hasty  surrender.  Some 
members  of  them,  partly  from  genuine  philanthropy,  partly 
from  ambition,  partly  perhaps  from  fear,  are,  like  the  aristo- 
cracy of  the  salo7is  in  France  in  the  last  century,  dallying  with 
revolution.  Demagogism  has  learnt  the  art  of  bribing  by 
socialistic  legislation  the  many  who  have  votes  at  the  expense 
of  the  tax-paying  few.  The  sight  of  accumulated  wealth  has 
stimulated  envy  to  a  dangerous  pitch.  This  is  not  the  place 
to  cast  the  horoscope  of  society.  We  may,  after  all,  be  over- 
rating the  gravity  of  the  crisis.  The  First  of  May  hitherto 
has  passed  without  bringing  forth  anything  more  portentous 
than  an  epidemic  of  strikes,  which,  though  very  disastrous, 
as  they  sharpen  and  embitter  class  antagonisms,  are  not  in 
themselves  attempts  to  subvert  society.  A  writer  who  has 
•surveyed  all  the  democracies,  says  that  the  only  country  on 
which  revolutionary  Socialism  has  taken  hold  is  England. 
German  Socialism  appears,  as  was  said  before,  to  be  largely 
impatience  of  taxation  and  conscription.  Much  is  called 
Socialism  and  taken  as  ominous  of  revolution  which  is  merely 


UTOPIAN   VISIONS.  49 

the  extension  of  the  action  of  government,  wisely  or  unwisely, 
over  new  portions  of  its  present  field,  and  perhaps  does  not 
deserve  the  dreaded  name  so  much  as  our  familiar  Sunday 
law.  The  crash,  if  it  come,  may  not  be  universal.  Things 
may  not  everywhere  take  the  same  course.  Wealth  in  some 
countries,  when  seriously  alarmed,  may  convert  itself  into 
military  power,  of  which  the  artisans  have  little,  and  may 
turn  the  scale  in  its  own  favour.  Though  social  science  is  as 
yet  undeveloped,  intelligence  has  more  organs  and  an  increas- 
ing hold.  The  efforts  which  good  members  of  the  employer 
or  wealthy  class  are  making  to  improve  social  and  industrial 
relations,  though  little  recognised  by  labour  journals,  and  so 
far  disappointing  in  their  effect  on  the  temper  of  the  masses, 
can  hardly  prove  altogether  vain.  The  present  may  after  all 
glide  more  calmly  tlian  we  think  into  the  future.  Still  there 
is  a  crisis.  We  have  had  the  Parisian  Commune,  the  Spanish 
Intransigentes,  Nihilism,  Anarchism.  A  point  is  not  unlikely 
to  be  reached  in  the  i)rogress  of  predatory  legislation  at  which 
property  will  turn  to  bay,  and,  having  arms  in  its  hands,  will 
tell  the  leveller  that  ransom  for  honest  earnings  and  lawful 
savings  shall  be  paid  in  lead  and  steel.  Then  would  come 
social  war.  It  is  not  a  time  for  playing  with  wild-fire.  Though 
Rousseau's  scheme  of  regeneration  by  a  return  to  nature 
came  to  nothing,  his  denunciations  of  society  told  with  a 
vengeance,  and  consigned  thousands  to  death  by  the  guillo- 
tine, hundreds  of  thousands  to  death  by  distress,  and  millions 
to  death  by  the  sword  or  by  the  havoc  and  pestilence  which 
follow  in  the  train  of  war. 

The  Utopian  seer,  in  trying  to  make  the  vision  of  his  fancy 
attractive  by  contrast,  is  naturally  tempted  to  overpaint  the 
evils  of  the  actual  state  of  things.  "Looking  Backward" 
opens  with  a  vivid  and  telling  picture  of  society  as  it  is. 

"  By  way  of  attempting  to  give  tlic  reader  some  general  impression 
of  the  way  people  lived  together  in  those  days,  and  especially  of  the  rela- 
tions of  the  rich  and  poor  to  one  another,  perhaps  I  cannot  do  better 
than  to  compare  society  as  it  then  was  to  a  prodigious  coach,  which  the 
masses  of  humanity  were  harnessed  to  and  dragged  toilsomely  along  a, 


50  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

very  hilly  and  sandy  road.  The  driver  was  hungry,  and  permitted  no 
lagging,  though  the  pace  was  necessarily  very  slow.  Despite  the  difficulty 
of  drawing  the  coach  at  all  along  so  hard  a  road,  the  top  was  covered 
with  passengers,  who  never  got  down,  even  at  the  steepest  ascent.  These 
seats  were  very  breezy  and  comfortable.  Well  up  out  of  the  dust,  their 
occupants  could  enjoy  the  scenery  at  their  leisure,  or  critically  discuss 
the  merits  of  the  straining  team.  Naturally  such  places  were  in  great 
demand,  and  the  competition  for  them  was  keen,  every  one  seeking  as 
the  first  end  in  life  to  secure  a  seat  on  the  coach  for  himself  and  to  leave 
it  to  his  child  after  him.  By  the  rule  of  the  coach,  a  man  could  leave  his 
seat  to  whom  he  wished  ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  there  were  many  acci- 
dents by  which  it  might  at  any  time  be  wholly  lost.  For  all  that  they 
were  so  easy,  the  seats  were  very  insecure,  and  at  every  sudden  jolt  of 
the  coach  persons  were  slipping  out  of  them  and  falling  to  the  ground, 
where  they  were  instantly  compelled  to  take  hold  of  the  rope  and  help  to 
drag  the  coach  on  which  they  had  before  ridden  so  pleasantly.  It  was 
naturally  regarded  as  a  terrible  misfortune  to  lose  one's  seat,  and  the 
apprehension  that  this  might  happen  to  them  or  their  friends  was  a  con- 
stant cloud  upon  the  hafipiness  of  those  who  rode." 

And  what  are  the  feelings  of  the  passengers  toward  the 
hapless  toilers  who  drag  the  coach?  Have  they  no  compas- 
sion for  the  sufferings  of  the  fellow-beings  from  whom  fortune 
only  has  distinguished  them? 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  commiseration  was  frequently  expressed  by  those  who  rode 
for  those  who  had  to  pull  the  coach,  especially  when  the  vehicle  came  to 
a  bad  place  in  the  road,  as  it  was  constantly  doing,  or  to  a  particularly 
steep  hill.  At  such  times  the  desperate  straining  of  the  team,  their 
agonised  leaping  and  jilunging  under  the  pitiless  lashing  of  hunger,  the 
many  who  fainted  at  the  rope  and  were  trampled  in  the  mire,  made  a 
very  distressing  spectacle,  which  often  called  forth  highly  creditable  dis- 
plays of  feeling  on  the  top  of  the  coach.  At  such  times  the  passengers 
would  call  down  encouragingly  to  the  toilers  at  the  roise,  exhorting  them 
to  patience,  and  holding  out  hopes  of  possible  compensation  in  another 
world  for  the  hardness  of  their  lot,  while  others  contributed  to  buy  salves 
and  liniments  for  the  crippled  and  injured.  It  was  agreed  that  it  was  a 
great  pity  that  the  coach  should  be  so  hard  to  pull,  and  there  was  a  sense 
of  general  relief  when  the  specially  bad  piece  of  road  was  gotten  over. 
This  relief  was  not,  indeed,  wholly  on  account  of  the  team,  for  there  was 
always  some  danger  at  these  bad  places  of  a  general  overturn  in  which  all 
would  lose  their  seats." 


UTOPIAN   VISIONS.  51 

These  passages  have  their  covmterparts  in  "News  from 
Nowhere,"  and  "  Caesar's  Column,"  the  latter  of  which,  inspired 
ajiparently  by  fear  of  the  Vanderbilts  and  Astors,  depicts  New 
York  as  miserably  enslaved  by  a  bloated  oligarchy  of  million- 
aires, with  its  demon  fleet  of  ten  thonsand  air  ships.  Tliey 
will  sink  deep  into  the  hearts  of  many  who  will  pay  little 
attention  to  the  speculative  plans  of  reconstruction  which 
follow.  For  one  reader  of  "Progress  and  Poverty"  who  was 
at  the  pains  to  follow  the  economical  reasoning,  there  were 
probably  thousands  who  drank  in  the  invectives  against 
wealth  and  the  suggestions  of  confiscation.  But  is  the  de- 
scription here  given  true  or  anything  like  the  truth?  Are 
the  masses  toiling  like  the  horses  of  a  coach,  not  for  their 
own  benefit,  but  only  for  that  of  the  passengers  whom  they 
draw?  Are  they  not  toiling  to  make  their  own  bread,  and  to 
produce  by  their  joint  labour  the  things  necessary  for  their 
common  subsistence?  As  to  the  vast  majority  of  them,  can  it 
be  said  that  they  are  leaping  and  plunging  in  agony  under  the 
pitiless  lash  of  hunger,  fainting  at  the  rope  and  trampled  in 
the  mire?  Are  they  not  with  tlieir  families  living  in  tolerable 
comfort,  with  bread  enough,  and  not  without  enjoyment? 
Has  it  not  been  proved  beyond  doubt  that  their  wages  have 
risen  greatly  and  are  still  rising?  Have  not  the  working 
classes,  unlike  the  horses,  votes?  Is  there  really  any  such 
sharp  division  as  is  here  assumed  to  exist  between  labour  and 
wealth?  Are  not  many  who  have  more  or  less  of  wealth  and 
would  have  seats  on  the  top  of  any  social  coach,  labourers 
and  producers  of  the  most  effective  kind?  Such  a  writer  can 
hardly  be  the  dupe  of  the  fallacy  that  those  only  labour  who 
work  with  the  hands.  What  is  the  amount  of  the  hereditary 
property  held  by  idlers  in  such  a  country  as  the  United  States, 
compared  with  that  of  the  general  wealth?  Do  the  holders 
even  of  that  property  really  add  by  their  existence  to  the 
strain  on  the  workers  as  the  passengers  by  their  presence  add 
to  the  strain  on  the  horses?  Supposing  they  and  their  riches 
were  anniliilated,  would  the  workers  feel  any  relief?  Would 
tlicy  not  riitlier  lose   a   fund  upon  which  they  draw  to  some 


52  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

extent  at  need?  The  hereditary  wealth  which  is  here  taken  to 
be  the  monster  iniquity  and  evil,  what  is  it  but  the  savings  of 
past  generations?  Had  those  who  made  it  spent  it,  instead  of 
leaving  it  to  their  children,  should  we  be  better  off?  Then, 
as  to  the  feelings  of  the  rich  toward  the  poor,  can  a  Bostonian, 
as  this  writer  is,  look  round  his  own  city  and  fail  to  see  that 
heartless  indifference  has  its  seat  only  in  the  souls  of  a  few 
sybarites,  and  that  sentiments,  at  all  events,  of  philanthropy 
and  charity  are  the  rule? 

It  is  in  these  Utopias  that  we  see  most  distinctly  embodied 
the  belief  that  equal  justice  is  the  natural  law  of  the  world, 
and  that  nothing  keeps  us  out  of  it  but  the  barrier  of  artifi- 
cial arrangements  set  up  by  the  power,  and  in  the  interest, 
of  a  class.  Break  down  that  barrier  by  revolutionary  legisla- 
tion, and  the  kingdom  of  equal  justice,  it  is  thought,  will 
come.  Would  that  it  were  so!  Who  could  be  so  selfish  and 
so  ignorant  of  the  deepest  source  of  happiness  as  not  readily 
to  vote  for  the  change,  whatever  his  own  place  on  the  social 
coach  might  be?  But  equal  justice  is  not  the  natural  law,  as 
the  world  is  at  present,  toward  whatever  goal  we  may  be 
moving.  Health,  strength,  beauty,  intellect,  offspring,  length 
of  days,  are  distributed  Avith  no  more  regard  for  justice  than 
are  the  powers  of  making  and  saving  wealth.  One  man  is  born 
in  an  age  of  barbarism,  another  in  an  age  of  civilisation;  one 
man  in  the  time  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War  or  the  Eeign  of 
Terror,  another  in  an  era  of  peace  and  comparative  happiness. 
ISTo  justice  can  now  be  done  to  the  myriads  who  have  suffered 
and  died.  Equal  justice  is  far  indeed  from  being  the  law  of 
the  animal  kingdom.  Why  is  one  animal  the  beast  of  prey, 
another  the  victim?  Why  does  an  elephant  live  for  a  cen- 
tury and  an  ephemeral  insect  for  a  few  hours?  If  you  come 
to  that,  why  should  one  sentient  creature  be  a  worm  and 
another  a  man?  In  earth  and  skies,  so  far  as  our  ken  reaches, 
imperfection  reigns.  He  who  in  "  Looking  Backward  "  wakes 
from  a  magnetic  slumber  to  find  the  lots  of  all  men  made 
just  and  equal,  might  almost  as  well  have  awakened  to  find 
human  frames  made  perfect,  disease  and  accident  banished. 


UTOPIAN   VISIONS.  53 

the  animals  all  in  a  state  like  that  of  Eden,  the  Arctic  regions 
bearing  hai'vests,  Sahara  moistened  with  fertilising  rain,  the 
moon  provided  with  an  atmosphere,  and  the  solar  system 
symmetrically  completed.  All  this  is  no  bar  to  the  rational 
effort  by  Avhich  society  is  gradually  improved.  But  it  shuts 
out  the  hope  of  sudden  transformation.  The  social  organism, 
like  the  bodily  frame,  is  imperfect;  you  may  help  and  benefi- 
cially direct  its  growth,  but  you  cannot  transform  it.  From 
revolutionary  violence  the  author  of  "  Looking  Backward " 
is  himself  wholly  averse.     He  uses  only  the  magic  wand. 

With  private  property,  with  which  it  is  the  dream  of  Uto- 
pian writers  to  do  away,  go,  as  everybody  knows,  many  evils; 
among  others  that  of  inordinate  accumulation,  of  which  there 
may  be  instances  in  New  York,  though  it  is  a  mistake  to  think 
that  accumulation  is  a  matter  of  modern  growth,  or  that  the 
community  was  not  just  as  much  overtopped  by  the  Medici 
and  the  Fuggers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  great  feudal  land- 
owners, and  the  Koman  magnates,  as  it  is  by  the  Vanderbilts 
and  Astors;  while  the  restraints  of  public  opinion  were  no- 
thing like  so  strong  in  those  days  as  they  are  in  ours.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  without  private  property  we 
could  have  the  home  and  all  that  it  enshrines.  But  let  the 
evils  be  whatever  they  may,  no  motive  power  of  production, 
at  least  of  any  production  beyond  that  necessary  to  stay 
hunger,  except  the  desire  of  property,  is  at  present  known. 
A  score  or  more  of  experiments  in  Communism  have  been 
made  upon  the  American  continent  by  visionaries  of  different 
kinds,  from  the  founders  of  Brook  Farm  to  those  of  the 
Oneida  Community  and  the  Shakers.  They  have,  as  has 
already  been  said,  failed  utterly,  except  in.  the  cases  where 
the  rule  of  celibacy  has  been  enforced,  and  the  members, 
having  no  wives  or  children  to  maintain,  and  being  themselves 
of  a  specially  industrious  and  frugal  class,  have  made  enough 
and  more  than  enough  for  their  own  sui)[)ort.  Collectively, 
the  community  has  owned  private  property  like  other  com- 
panies or  corporations.  Tlie  Oneida  Community,  the  most 
prosperous  of  all,  owned  three  factories,  in  which  the  work- 


54  QUESTIONS  OF  THE   DAY. 

men  were  employed  on  the  ordinary  terms.  Barrack  life, 
without  the  home,  has  also  been  a  general  condition  of  success. 

So  it  is  with  regard  to  competition,  that  other  social  tiend 
of  this  and  all  Utopias.  Nobody  will  deny  that  competition 
has  its  ugly  side.  But  no  other  way  at  present  is  known  to 
us  of  sustaining  the  progress  of  industry  and  securing  the 
best  and  cheapest  products.  It  is  surely  a  stretch  of  pessi- 
mistic fancy  to  describe  the  industrial  world  under  the  com- 
petitive system  as  a  horde  of  wild  beasts  rending  each  other, 
or  as  a  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta  "  with  its  press  of  maddened 
men  tearing  and  trampling  one  another  in  the  struggle  to  win 
a  place  at  the  breathing  holes."  It  is  surely  going  beyond  the 
mark  to  say  that  all  producers  are  "praying  by  night  and 
working  by  day  for  the  frustration  of  each  other's  enter- 
prises," and  that  they  are  as  much  bent  on  spoiling  their 
neighbours'  crops  as  on  saving  their  own.  Do  two  tailors  or 
grocers,  even  when  their  business  is  in  the  same  street,  rend 
each  other  when  they  meet?  Is  there  not  rather  a  certain 
brotherhood  between  members  of  the  same  trade?  Does  not 
each  think  a  good  deal  more,  both  in  his  prayers  and  in  his 
practical  transactions,  of  doing  well  himself  than  of  prevent- 
ing his  fellows  from  doing  well. 

The  writer  of  "  Looking  Backward  "  himself  says  that  "  as 
men  grow  more  civilised,  and  as  the  subdivision  of  occupations 
and  services  is  carried  out,  a  complex  mutual  dependence 
becomes  the  universal  rule."  What  is  this  complex  mutual 
dependence  but  co-operation? 

As  a  normal  picture  of  our  present  civilisation,  the  table  of 
contents  of  a  newspaper  is  presented  to  us.  It  is  a  mere  cata- 
logue of  calamities  and  horrors;  wars,  burglaries,  strikes, 
failures  in  business,  cornerings,  boodlings,  murders,  suicides, 
embezzlements,  and  cases  of  cruelty,  lunacy,  or  destitution. 
No  doubt  a  real  table  of  contents  would  give  a  picture,  though 
not  so  terrible  and  heartrending  as  this,  yet  rich  in  catastro- 
phes. But  it  is  forgotten  that  the  catastrophes  or  the  excep- 
tional events  alone  are  recorded  by  newspapers,  especially  in 
the  tables  of  contents,  which  are  intended  to  catch  the  eye. 


UTOPIAN   VISIONS.  55 

No  newspaper  gives  us  a  picture  of  the  ordinary  course  of  life. 
No  newspaper  speaks  of  the  countries  whicli  are  enjoying 
secure  peace,  of  the  people  who  are  making  a  fair  livelihood 
by  honest  industry,  of  the  families  which  are  living  in  comfort 
and  the  enjoyment  of  affection.  Buyers  would  hardly  be 
found  for  a  sheet  which  should  tell  you  by  way  of  news  that 
bread  was  being  regularly  delivered  by  the  baker  and  that  the 
milkman  was  going  his  round. 

Centuries  unnumbered,  according  to  recent  palaeontologists, 
human  society  has  taken  in  climbing  to  what  is  here  described 
as  the  level  of  a  vast  den  of  wild  beasts  or  a  Black  Hole  of 
Calcutta.  Yet  in  one  century  or  a  little  more  it  is  to  become 
a  paradise  on  earth.  Not  Massachusetts  or  America  only 
but  the  whole  civilised  world  will  have  been  regenerated  and 
have  entered  into  the  economical  Eden.  So  the  writer  of 
" Looking  Backward "  dreams;  and  to  show  that  he  does  not 
regard  this  as  a  mere  dream,  he  cites  historical  precedents  of 
changes  which  he  thinks  equally  miraculous,  the  sudden  and 
unexpected  success,  as  it  appears  to  him  to  have  been,  of 
the  American  Revolution,  of  German  and  Italian  unification, 
of  the  agitation  against  slavery.  In  two  of  these  cases  at 
least,  those  of  German  and  Italian  unity,  the  wonder  was  not 
that  the  event  came  at  last,  but  that  it  was  delayed  so  long. 
In  no  one  of  the  cases,  surely,  is  anything  like  a  precedent  for 
so  wide  and  universal  a  leap  into  the  future  to  be  found.  From 
Dr.  Leete,  who  is  the  showman  of  the  new  heavens  and  uoav 
earth  in  "Looking  Backward,"  the  reader  learns  that  society, 
in  the  year  2000,  has  undergone  not  only  a  radical  change,  but 
a  complete  transformation,  Boston,  of  course,  leading  the  way, 
as  Paris  leads  in  the  regeneration  proclaimed  by  Comte,  and 
all  the  most  civilised  communities  duly  following  in  her  train. 
Society  has  become  entirely  industrial,  war  being  completely 
eliminated.  No  fear  is  entertained  lest  when  the  civilised 
world  has  been  turned  into  a  vast  factory  of  defenceless 
wealth,  the  uncivilised  world  may  be  tempted  to  loot  it.  V'et 
this  danger  is  not  imaginary  if  there  is  any  truth  in  what  Ave 
are  told  about   the    military   force   latent    in   China,  to  say 


50  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

nothing  of  the  people  of  South  America,  who,  though  politi- 
cally unsuccessful,  are  always  showing  that  they  can  light. 

The  State  has  become  the  sole  capitalist  and  tlie  universal 
employer.  How  did  all  the  capital  pass  from  the  hands  of 
individuals  or  private  companies  into  those  of  the  State? 
Was  it  by  a  voluntary  and  universal  surrender?  Were  all  the 
capitalists  and  all  the  stockholders  suddenly  convinced  of  the 
blessings  of  self-spoliation?  Or  did  the  government  by  a 
sweeping  act  of  confiscation  seize  all  the  capital?  In  that 
case,  was  there  not  a  struggle?  Was  not  the  entrance  into 
Paradise  effected  through  a  social  war?  A  mere  "recognition 
of  evolution  "  by  thinkers,  the  only  means  suggested,  would 
hardly  go  far  with  capitalists  or  joint-stock  companies,  nor 
would  they  be  likely  to  allow  themselves  to  be  stripped  by  a 
"  political  party  "  so  long  as  they  had  the  means  of  resistance 
in  their  hands.  The  seer  was  in  his  magnetic  trance  when 
the  transfer  took  place,  and  he  has  not  the  curiosity  to  ask 
Dr.  Leete  exactly  how  it  was  effected.  For  us,  therefore,  the 
problem  remains  unsolved. 

The  inducement  to  the  change,  we  are  told,  was  a  sense  of 
the  economic  advantages  produced  by  the  aggregation  of  in- 
dustries under  co-operative  syndicates  and  trusts,  which  sug- 
gested that  by  a  complete  unification  of  all  industries  under 
the  State  unmeasured  benefits  might  be  obtained.  "  The  epoch 
of  trusts  ended  in  the  great  trust."  This  implies  a  practical 
approval  of  that  tendency  to  industrial  aggregation,  Avhicli  is 
a  momentous  feature  of  the  economical  situation,  and  Avhich 
in  most  quarters  is  viewed  with  extreme  aversion  and  alarm. 
But  these  corporations,  syndicates,  and  trusts,  on  however 
large  a  scale  they  may  be,  are  still  managed,  each  of  them,  by 
a  set  of  persons  devoted  to  that  particular  business,  and  they 
depend  for  their  success  on  personal  aptitude  and  experience. 
Between  such  aggregations  and  a  union  of  all  the  industries 
in  the  hands  of  a  government  there  is  a  gulf,  and  we  do  not 
see  how  the  gulf  is  to  be  passed.  The  tendency  of  industry 
appears,  it  is  true,  to  be  towards  large  establishments,  the 
advantages  of  which  over  a  multitude  of  petty  and  starveling 


UTOPIAN  VISIONS.  57 

concerns,  both  as  regards  those  engaged  in  the  trade  and  the 
consumer,  are  obvious.  But  the  large  producing  establish- 
ments are  still  special,  and  the  advantages  of  combining  iron 
works  with  cotton  works  are  not  obvious  at  all. 

To  the  objection  that  the  task  of  managing  all  the  industries 
of  a  country  and  its  foreign  commerce  (for  foreign  commerce 
there  is  still  to  be)  Avould  be  difficult  for  any  government, 
the  simple  and  satisfactory  answer  is  that  in  Utopia  there 
could  be  no  difficulty  at  all.  The  government  being  that  of 
a  purely  industrial  commonwealth  is  itself  to  be  industrial. 
It  consists  of  veterans  of  labour  chosen  on  account  of  their 
merit  as  workers,  the  identity  of  Avhich  with,  administrative 
capacity  and  power  of  command,  as  it  is  not  likely  to  be 
tested,  may  be  assumed  without  fear  of  disproof.  We  cannot 
help  scenting  an  affinity  to  a  domination  of  the  "bosses"  of 
trade-unions,  with  the  consequences  to  civilisation  of  such 
a  rule.  To  banish  any  misgivings  which  we  might  have  as 
to  the  practicability  of  such  a  government,  the  seer  points 
to  the  part  taken  by  alumni  in  the  government  of  universities ; 
surely  as  subtle  an  analogy  as  the  acutest  intelligence  ever 
discerned.  The  government  is  to  be  "  responsible  "  in  all  that 
it  does.  But  how  in  the  last  resort  is  responsibility  to  be 
enforced  and  usurpation  to  be  repressed  by  a  community  of 
industrial  sheep? 

The  new  organisation  of  labour  has  been  followed  by  such  a 
flood  of  wealth  that  everybody  lives,  not  only  in  plenty,  but 
in  luxury  and  refinement  before  unknown.  Everybody  is  able 
to  give  up  work  at  forty-five,  that  being  fixed  as  the  proerus- 
tean  limit  for  all  constitutions,  and  to  pass  the  rest  of  his 
days  in  ease  and  enjoyment.  "No  man  any  more  has  any 
care  for  to-morrow,  either  for  himself  or  his  children,  for  the 
nation  guarantees  the  nurture,  education,  and  comfortable 
maintenance  of  every  citizen  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave." 
All  the  world  diesses  for  dinner,  dines  well,  and  has  wine  and 
cigars  afterwards.  Under  all  this  lurks,  it  is  to  be  feared, 
the  same  fallacy  which  underlies  the  theory  of  Mr.  Henry 
George,  who  fancies  that  an  increase  of  population,  being  an 


58  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

increase  of  the  number  of  labourers,  will  proportionally  aug- 
ment production,  and  consequ^ently  that  the  fears  of  Maltlius 
and  all  who  dread  over-population  are  baseless.  It  is  assumed 
that  everything  is  produced  by  labour.  But  the  fact  is  that 
labour  only  produces  the  form  or  directs  the  natural  forces. 
The  material  is  produced  by  Nature,  and  she  will  not  supply 
more  than  a  given  quantity  within  a  given  area  and  under 
given  conditions.  Even  in  Massachusetts,  therefore,  which 
is  supposed  ,to  be  the  primal  scene  of  human  regeneration, 
the  people,  however  skilled  their  labour,  and  however  ideal 
their  industrial  organisation  might  be,  unless  their  number 
were  limited  or  their  territory  enlarged,  would  starve.  This 
is  a  serious  question  for  a  State  which  "  guarantees  to  every 
one  nurture,  education,  and  comfortable  maintenance  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave."  As  the  guarantee  extends  to  the 
citizen's  wife  and  child  as  well  as  to  himself,  and  they  are 
made  independent  of  his  labour,  the  last  restraint  of  prudence 
on  marriage  and  giving  birth  to  children  would  be  removed. 
The  people  would  then  probably  multiply  at  a  rate  which  would 
leave  Irish  or  Prench-Canadian  philoprogenitiveness  behind, 
and  without  remedial  action  a  vast  scene  of  squalid  misery 
would  ensue. 

There  is  no  more  private  property.  In  its  place  comes  a 
sense  of  public  duty  urging  each  man  to  labour.  Of  the  suffi- 
cient strength  of  this  we  are  j)Ositively  assured,  notwithstand- 
ing the  result  of  all  the  experiments  hitherto  tried.  Reality 
peeps  out  when  we  are  told  that  those  who  refuse  to  work  will 
be  put  into  confinement  on  bread  and  water.  This  is  some- 
thing like  a  reversion,  is  it  not,  to  the  coach  and  horses,  with 
the  "  lash  of  hunger  "?  The  occasional  necessity  of  a  "  draft " 
is  another  intimation  that  Nature,  though  you  thrust  her  out, 
will  resume  her  seat. 

The  stimulus  of  duty  to  the  man's  family  would  exist  no 
more,  when  the  maintenance  of  his  wife  and  children  was  taken 
off  his  hands  by  the  State.  For  the  lower  natures,  though  not 
for  the  higher,  there  is  to  be  emulation,  which,  it  is  taken  for 
granted,  will  act  on  them  with  undiminished  effect  when  all 


UTOPIAN   VISIONS.  59 

the  substantial  prizes  have  been  removed.  An  appeal  is  also 
made  to  a  semi-military  sense  of  honour,  and  the  community 
is  organised  as  an  army,  with  military  titles,  apparently  for 
that  purpose.  But  it  has  been  shown,  in  answer  to  other 
theorists  who  have  pointed  to  military  honour  as  a  substitute 
for  the  ordinary  motives  to  industry,  that  military  duty  is 
enforced  by  a  code  of  exceptional  severity.  Nor  will  the  mili- 
tary forms  and  names  have  much  meaning  or  be  likely  to  ani- 
mate and  inspirit  when  war,  with  all  its  pride,  pomp,  and  cir- 
cumstance, has  been  banished  from  the  earth. 

All  are  to  be  paid  alike,  on  the  principle  that  so  long  as 
you  do  your  best  your  deserts  are  the  same  as  those  of  others, 
though  your  power  may  not  be  so  great  as  theirs.     Your  de- 
serts in  the  eye  of  Heaven,  no  doubt,  are  the  same  if  you  do 
your  best;  and  Heaven  has  the  means  of  ascertaining  that 
your  best  is  being  done.     But  if  it  is  asked  what  means  a  board 
of  industrial  veterans  or  their  lieutenants,  supposing  them  to 
be  ever  so  excellent  craftsmen  themselves,  have  of  ascertain- 
ing that  every  man  is  doing  his  best,  the  answer,  we  suspect, 
must  be  that  in  Utopia  such  questions  are  not  to  be  raised. 
In  the  present  evil  world  most  men  do  their  best,  or  something 
like  their  best,  because  they  have  to  make  their  own  living 
and  that  of  their  wives  and  children.    Some  men,  under  the 
voluntary  and  competitive  system,  put  forth  those  extraordi- 
nary efforts  which  make  the  world  move  on.     But  the  State, 
though  it  might  command  the  daily  amount  of  labour  by  threat 
of  solitary  confinement  on  bread-and-water,  could  not  com- 
mand improvement  or  invention.     Invention,  or  discovery,  it 
seems  to  us,  would  be   little  encouraged  under  the  system, 
since  no  man  is  to  be  allowed  to  shirk  labour  on  pretence  of 
being  a  student,  a  regulation  wliidi  might  have  borne  hard  on 
Archimedes,  Newton,  or   even  Watt.     Newton  would   at  all 
events  have  had,  in  obedience  to  an  inexorable  rule,  to  pass 
three  years  as  a  com.mon  labourer,  and  his  labour  during  tliose 
three   years  would   have  cost   the  world  uncommonly  dear. 
Even  the  employment  of   Dr.   Leete,  the    good  physician  of 
this   piece,    for   some  years  as   waiter   in   a  restaurant  was 


60  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

rather  a  waste  of   his,    or,    to   speak  more  properly,  of  the 
State's  time. 

Money  as  "  a  root  of  evil "  has  been  totally  discarded.     Its 
place  is  taken  by  credit  cards,  entitling  the  bearer,  by  virtue 
of  his   mere  humanity,  to  a  share  of  the  national  produce. 
Wages  are  a  thing  of  the  past.     The  certificates  are  to  be  pre- 
sented at  the  government  store,  for  government  is  the  univer- 
sal  supplier   as   well  as  the  universal  employer  of   labour. 
Money,  it  is  said,  may  have  been  fraudulently  or  improperly 
obtained,  but  with  labour  certificates  this  cannot  be  the  case. 
We  hardly  see  how  a  government  store-keeper  at  New  Orleans 
is  to  tell  that  the  certificate  was  not  fraudulently  obtained  at 
Boston.     How  could  the  title  to  it  be  verified  in  foreign  coun- 
tries where,  we  are  told,  by  international  arrangement  it  is  to 
be  current?     Probably  in  this  as  in  other  communistic  schemes 
there  is  a  lurking  assumption  that  the  members  of  tlie  brother- 
hood will  always  remain  in  the  same  place,  and  that  life  will 
thus  become  stationary  as  well  as  devoid  of  individual  aim. 
But  the  weak  part  of  the  arrangement  betrays  itself  in  the 
necessity  of  continuing  to  use  the  terms  dollars  and  cents. 
They  are  used  only,   we  are  told,   as  "algebraic  symbols." 
Surely  the  most  obvious  and  the  safest  course  would  have  been 
to  discard  the  terms  altogether,  pregnant  as  they  were  Avith 
evil  associations  and  likely  as  they  would  be  to  perpetuate  the 
vicious  desires  and  habits  of  the  past.     Let  another  set  of 
algebraic  symbols  be  devised,  and  let  us  see  how  it  will  work. 
In  the  case  of  the  transition  from  the  use  of  money  to  that  of 
labour  certificates,  as  in  that  of  the  transition  from  private 
commerce  to  commerce  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  govern- 
ment, we  should  have  liked  to  be  present  when  the  leap  was 
taken,  or  at  least  to  have  had  some  account  of  the  process, 
especially  as  it  must  have  taken  place  at  once  over  the  whole 
civilised  world.     For  commerce,  we  have  seen,  there  is  still 
to  be ;  in  the  latitude  of  Boston  the  Utopian  could  not  get  his 
wine  and  cigars  without  it. 

Law  as  a  profession  has  ceased  to  exist.     Of  course  where 
there  is  no  property  there  can  be  no  chancery  suits.     As  nine- 


UTOPIAN   VISIONS.  61 

teen  twentieths  of  crime  arise  from  the  desire  for  money  —  not 
from  drink,  as  tlie  Proliibitionists  pretend  —  it  folknvs  that  in 
getting  rid  of  money  society  has  almost  entirely  got  rid  of 
crime.  Of  crime,  in  the  present  sense  of  the  term,  indeed,  it 
has  got  rid  altogether.  A  few  victims  of  "  atavism  "  are  left 
as  a  sort  of  tribute  to  reality,  but  they  generally  save  the 
judiciary  trouble  by  pleading  guilty,  so  high  has  the  regard 
for  veracity  become  even  in  the  minds  of  kleptomaniacs. 

In  the  present  imperfect  state  of  things,  the  distribution  of 
employments,  it  must  be  owned,  though  partly  a  matter  of 
choice,  is  largely  a  matter  of  chance  and  circumstance,  the 
intellectual  callings  going  to  those  who  have  the  means  of  a 
higher  education.  In  Utopia  it  will  be  entirely  a  matter  of 
choice,  after  elaborate  testing  of  aptitudes  and  tastes  under 
the  guidance  of  a  paternal  government.  It  is  assumed  that 
all  employments  will  attract,  since  some  men,  after  deliberate 
survey  of  the  various  walks  of  life,  will  conveniently  choose 
to  be  miners,  hod-men,  ''odourless  excavators,"  brakesmen, 
stokers,  or  sailors  on  the  North  Atlantic  passage.  Danger  is 
even  attractive.  Such  is  the  exuberance  of  public  spirit  that 
the  government  has  only  to  declare  an  employment  extra  haz- 
ardous and  a  rush  of  chivalrous  candidates  to  it  ensues.  A 
rush  might  rather  have  been  apprehended  into  the  lighter 
callings,  especially  that  of  poet.  Any  repugnance  to  a  partic- 
ular kind  of  labour  which  there  might  be,  Avill  be  conjured 
away  by  saying  that  all  kinds  of  labour  are  equally  honoura- 
ble. Do  we  not  say  this  now?  Do  we  not  feel  this  now  much 
more  than  the  pessimist  admits?  Does  any  one  worthy  of  the 
name  of  a  gentleman  "  increase  the  burden  of  service  which  he 
imposes  "  on  his  household  by  adding  to  it  contempt  ? 

Everybody  is  to  be  highly  educated  and  thoroughly  refined. 
This  in  Utopia  will  not  interfere  with  the  disposition  for 
manual  labour,  nor  will  it  take  away  too  much  of  tlie  la- 
bourer's time.  One  question,  however,  occurs  to  us.  The 
population  cannot  have  been  highly  educated  when  the  system 
was  first  introduced.  How  were  the  ignorant  and  unqualified 
masses  brought  to  take  part  in  its  introduction,  and  how  was 


02  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

its  operation  managed  before  they  liad  been  educated  up  to  the 
proper  mark?  This  is  another  problem  of  the  transition,  the 
solution  of  which  remains  buried  in  the  seer's  magnetic 
sleep. 

The  relations  between  the  sexes  and  the  constitution  of  the 
family  are,  of  course,  to  be  revolutionised,  and  the  revolution 
has  so  far  an  element  of  probability  that  it  follows  what  are 
supposed  to  be  Bostonian  lines.  The  women  are  to  be  organ- 
ised apart  from  the  men  as  a  distinct  interest,  under  a  "  gen- 
eral "  of  their  own  who  has  a  seat  in  the  cabinet.  They  would 
do  quite  enough  for  society,  they  are  gallantly  told,  if  they 
occupied  themselves  only  in  the  cultivation  of  their  own 
charms  and  graces;  women  without  any  special  charms  and 
graces  but  those  which  belong  to  the  performance  of  their 
womanly  duties  as  wives  and  mothers  being  creatures  here 
unknown.  However,  for  the  sake  of  their  health  and  to  sat- 
isfy their  feelings  of  independence,  they  are  to  do  a  very  mod- 
erate amount  of  work.  They  have  in  fact  little  else  to  do. 
They  have  no  household  cares,  as  the  State  is  universal  cook, 
housemaid,  laundress,  seamstress,  and  nurse;  and  "a  husband 
is  not  a  baby  that  he  should  be  cared  for."  Maternity,  though 
recognised,  is  thrown  into  the  background.  It  is  an  interlude 
in  the  woman's  industrial  and  social  life,  and  as  soon  as  it  is 
over  the  mother  returns  to  her  "comrades,"  leaving  her  child, 
apparently,  to  that  universal  providence,  the  State.  Hitherto, 
it  seems,  men,  like  "cruel  robbers,"  have  "seized  to  them- 
selves the  whole  product  of  the  world  and  left  women  to  beg 
and  wheedle  for  their  share."  By  whose  labour  the  earth  has 
been  made  to  yield  its  fruits  for  the  benefit  of  both  sexes,  we 
are  not  told.  However,  "that  any  person  should  be  depend- 
ent for  the  means  of  support  upon  another  would  be  shocking 
to  the  moral  sense  as  well  as  indefensible  on  any  rational 
social  theory."  Women  in  the  perfect  commonwealth,  there- 
fore, are  no  longer  left  in  "  galling  dependence  "  upon  their 
husbands  for  the  means  of  life,  or  children  upon  their  parents. 
Both  wife  and  child  are  maintained  by  the  agency  of  the  State, 
so  that  the  wife  no  longer  owes  anything  to  her  husband,  and 


UTOPIAN  VISIONS.  63 

the  child  is  at  liberty,  as  nature  dictates,  to  snap  its  fingers 
in  the  faces  of  its  parents.  Does  the  State  give  suck,  and 
is  the  bab}^  no  longer  ignominiously  beholden  to  its  mother  for 
milk?  Is  not  the  government  composed  of  persons?  Why  is 
dependence  uj)on  the  persons  installed  at  Washington  less 
ignominious  than  dependence  upon  a  husband,  a  father,  or  a 
mother?  To  some,  dependence  on  the  government  might  seem 
the  most  galling  of  all. 

False  delicacy  is  put  out  of  the  way,  and  the  women  are 
allowed  to  propose.  They  "  sit  aloft "  on  the  top  of  the  coach, 
giving  the  prizes  for  the  industrial  race,  and  select  only  the 
best  and  noblest  men  for  their  husbands.  Ill-favoured  men  of 
inferior  type,  and  laggards,  will  be  condemned  to  celibacy. 
From  them  the  "  radiant  faces  "  will  be  averted.  These  hap- 
less persons  are  treated  with  a  marked  absence,  to  say  the 
least,  of  the  philanthropy  which  overflows  upon  criminals  and 
lunatics,  though  it  seems  that  the  plea  of  atavism  should  not 
be  less  valid  in  their  case.  Has  Dr.  Leete,  when  he  denies 
them  marriage,  found  a  way  of  extinguishing  their  passions? 
If  he  has  not,  what  moral  results  does  he  expect?  He  will 
answer  perhaps  by  an  appeal  to  what  may  be  called  the  occult 
"we,"  that  mysterious  power  which,  in  Utopia,  is  present 
throughout  to  solve  all  difficulties  and  banish  every  doubt. 
Nothing  can  be  more  divine  than  the  picture  which  Dr.  Leete 
presents  to  us;  but  we  look  at  it  with  a  secret  misgiving  that 
his  community  would  be  in  some  danger  of  being  thrust  out  of 
existence  by  some  barbarous  horde,  which  honoured  virtue  and 
admired  excellence  in  both  sexes  without  giving  itself  over  to 
a  slavish  and  fatuous  worship  of  either,  held  men  and  Avomen 
alike  to  their  proper  duties,  and  obeyed  the  laws  of  Nature. 

The  government  is  the  universal  publisher,  .and  is  bound  to 
publish  everything  brought  to  it,  but  on  condition  that  the 
author  pay  the  first  cost  out  of  his  "credit."  How  the  aiithor, 
while  preparing  himself  to  write  "Paradise  Lost,"  or  the 
"Principia,"  is  to  earn  a  labour  credit,  we  hardly  see.  Uto- 
pian literature  is  of  course  divine.  To  read  one  of  Perrian's 
novels  or  one  of  Oates's  poems  is  worth  a  year  of  one's  life. 


64  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Would  that  we  had  a  specimen  of  either!  We  should  then  be 
able  to  see  how  far  it  transcended  Shakespeare  or  Scott.  For 
love  stories,  we  are  told,  there  Avill  be  material  in  plenty  and 
of  a  much  higher  quality  than  there  was  in  the  days  of  coarse 
and  stormy  passion.  The  actual  love  affair  that  takes  j)lace  in 
"  Looking  Backward  "  certainly  does  not  remind  us  of  "  Romeo 
and  Juliet."  Of  the  pulpit  eloquence  we  have  a  specimen, 
and  it  is  startlingly  like  that  of  our  own  century.  One  great 
improvement,  however,  there  is ;  the  preaching  is  by  telephone 
and  you  can  shut  it  off. 

The  physical  arrangements  are  carried  to  millenarian  per- 
fection. Instead  of  a  multitude  of  separate  umbrellas,  one 
common  umbrella  is  put  up  by  the  State  over  Boston  when  it 
rains.  These  visions  of  a  material  heaven  on  earth  naturally 
arise  as  the  hope  of  a  spiritual  heaven  fades  away.  A  material 
heaven  on  earth  it  is.  The  arrangements  for  shopping,  like 
everything  else,  are  divine.  The  whole  community  is  con- 
verted into  one  vast  Whiteley's  or  Wanamaker's  establish- 
ment. Public  bands  are  playing  seraphic  music  through  the 
whole  twenty-four  hours,  and  you  turn  on  the  piece  you  like 
by  telephone.  Public  buildings  are  palaces,  and  their  equip- 
ment is  a  paragon  of  luxury.  We  only  wonder  how  the  un- 
speakable privileges  of  the  city  can  be  extended  to  the  country, 
and  who  will  be  contented  to  stay  in  the  country  if  they  are 
not.     The  American  dream  is  of  city  life. 

Let  the  material  happiness  of  Mr.  Bellamy's  Utopians  be 
as  perfect  and  brilliant  as  it  will,  suppose  every  shadow  of 
economical  evil  to  have  vanished,  there  is  one  shadow  that  will 
not  away.  It  is  signified  that  at  a  man's  decease  the  State 
allows  a  fixed  sum  for  his  funeral  expenses.  This  is  the  only 
intimation  that,  over  the  material  Paradise  hovers  Death. 

A  vista  of  illimitable  progress,  progress  so  glorious  that 
it  dazzles  the  prophetic  eye,  is  said  all  the  time  to  be  opened. 
But  how  can  tliere  be  progress  beyond  perfection?  Pinality 
is  the  trap  into  which  all  Utopian  fancy  falls.  Comte,  after 
tracing  the  movement  of  humanity  through  the  ages  down 
to  his  own  time,  undertakes  by  his  supreme  intelligence  to 


UTOPIAN   VISIONS.  65 

furnish  a  creed  and  a  set  of  institutions  which  are  to  serve 
forever.  Progress,  however,  we  do  not  doubt  there  woukl  be 
with  a  vengeance.  The  monotony,  the  constraint,  the  procrus- 
teanisni,  the  dulness,  the  despotism  of  the  system,  would  soon 
give  birth  to  general  revolt,  which  would  dash  the  whole 
structure  to  pieces. 

It  may  seem  that  we  are  guilty  of  a  platitude  in  seriously 
criticising  a  composition  the  author  of  which  himself  perhaps 
was  hardly  serious  in  what  he  wrote.  lUit  the  destructive 
passages,  we  repeat,  tell,  while  the  constructive  part,  as  soon 
as  it  is  touched  by  the  finger  of  criticism,  vanishes  into  the 
inane. 

F 


THE   QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT. 


THE   QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT. 

Disestablishment  of  tlie  Cliurcli  in  England  and  Scotland 
is  a  question  evidently  at  hand.  It  is  a  subject  to  be 
approached  not  only  by  every  religious  man,  but  by  every 
statesman,  with  tenderness  and  care.  The  village  church  in 
which  "the  kneeling  hamlet  drains  the  chalice  of  the  grapes 
of  God,"  with  its  altar  at  which  the  people  of  the  parish  have 
been  married,  its  font  at  which  they  were  christened,  and  its 
churchyard  in  which  their  forefathers  sleep,  has  been  the 
great  feature  not  only  of  rural  landscape  but  of  rural  life. 
The  Rectory,  if  its  occupant  did  his  duty,  has  been  the  centre 
of  rural  civilisation,  education,  and  benevolence.  It  has 
probably  done  more  in  this  way  than  the  Hall.  The  religious 
sentiment  and  poetry  of  the  nation  have  had  their  centre  in 
the  Cathedral.  In  Scotland,  if  the  aspect  of  the  Established 
Church  is  less  picturesque,  the  attachment  of  the  people  to 
it  and  the  connection  of  their  spiritual  life  with  it,  in  spite  of 
disruption,  are  still  stronger.  It  would  be  a  great  misfortune 
if  the  problem  were  left  to  be  settled  by  faction,  and  political 
gamblers  were  allowed  to  use  Disestablishment  as  the  means 
of  loading  their  dice.  To  tell  a  great  religious  community  that 
the  churches  in  which  it  has  worshipped  for  ages  shall  hence- 
forth be  deemed  "national  monuments,"  and  that  it  shall 
have  the  use  of  them  on  application  to  a  Commission,  is  surely 
a  piece  of  Jacobinism  as  unstatesmanlike  as  it  is  unfeeling. 

That  there  is  a  current  almost  throughout  the  civilised 
world  setting  towards  Disestablishment  can  hardly  be  denied. 
It  is  true  that,  as  we  have  been  bidden  to  observe,  in  every 
monarchical  country  of  Europe  the  Church  is  still  establisliod 
and  endowed,  while  in  some,  as  in   Austria,  am]   in   IJussia,  it 

G9 


70  QUESTIONS  OF   THE   DAY. 

is  still  in  a  high  degree  endowed,  even  monasteries  being  left 
with  their  estates.  Almost  everywhere  there  are  Ministries 
of  Public  Worship.  Even  republican  France  has  her  Estab- 
lished Church,  subsidised  by  the  State.  This  is  true,  and  it 
is  true  that  in  republican  Switzerland  there  is  still  a  Cantonal, 
though  not  a  Federal,  connection  of  the  State  with  the  Church. 
But  on  what  sort  of  footing  is  the  Church  in  the  more  advanced 
countries  now  established  and  endowed,  compared  with  the 
footing  on  which  she  was  established  and  endowed  in  the  old 
Catholic  days?  No  longer  half  mistress  of  the  realm,  or 
forming  a  great  estate  of  it,  she  has  sunk  into  a  pensioner,  and 
a  not  very  beloved  or  honoured  pensioner,  of  the  government. 
In  France,  once  the  realm  of  her  eldest  son,  where  a  century 
and  a  half  ago  she  could  put  men  to  death  for  offences  against 
her,  she  now  shares  her  dole,  not  only  with  heretics  but  with 
Jews,  while  in  the  French  province  of  Algeria  she  shares  it 
with  Mussulmans.  In  the  land  of  Philip  the  Second,  though 
almost  the  whole  population  still  professes  his  creed,  her  posi- 
tion is  hardly  higher  or  more  secure  than  in  the  land  of  Louis 
the  Fourteenth.  There,  too,  instead  of  dominating,  she  is  a 
creature  of  the  government,  her  enormous  property  has  been 
secularised,  and  she  has  become  a  paid  servant  of  the  State. 
Education,  the  key  of  social  character  and  influence,  has  been 
generally  wrested  out  of  her  hands.  Marriage,  also,  has  been 
generally  transferred  from  her  domain  to  that  of  the  magis- 
trate. To  take  an  instance  from  the  Protestant  side,  how  great 
is  the  change  in  the  relation  of  the  Church  generally  to  the 
State  since  the  days  in  which  Calvin  was  dictator!  If  in 
Austria  and  Eussia  the  process  is  not  so  far  advanced,  it  is 
because  they  are  behind  the  other  nations  in  the  general  race. 
The  Republics  are  the  last  birth  of  Time,  they  are  the  leading 
shoots  of  political  growth,  and  in  them  the  connection  between 
Church  and  State  is  weakest.  All  the  footprints  point  the 
same  way.  The  only  apparent  exception  is  the  restoration 
of  the  Established  Church  of  France  by  Napoleon.  The 
violence  of  the  extreme  revolutionary  party  had  for  the  time 
outrun  popular  conviction,  and  thus  a  reactionary  despot  was 


THE    QUESTION  OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  71 

enabled  to  take  a  step  backward,  and  by  his  fiat  reinstate  an 
institution  of  the  past.  But  how  altered  was  that  institution 
in  its  estate  and  in  its  relation  to  the  government  from  the 
Established  Church  of  the  Bourbons!  Even  Ministries  of 
Public  Worship,  where  they  exist,  are  signs  that  the  Church 
has  become  a  subordinate  department  of  the  State,  losing  lier 
independence  and  with  it  a  part  of  her  sanctity. 

The  Papacy  itself,  once  the  supremely  established  and 
imperially  endowed  Church  of  Catholic  Europe,  has  it  not 
been  both  disestablished  and  disendowed?  Its  chief  is  now 
the  "prisoner  of  the  Vatican,"  subsisting  on  the  alms  of  the 
faithful  and  hopelessly  protesting  against  the  abolition  of  his 
temporal  power.  It  is  true  his  spiritual  power  over  the  people 
has  been  increased  by  becoming  purely  spiritual,  and  by  the 
concentration  upon  him  of  the  allegiance  of  the  Catholic 
Churches  which,  having  lost  the  support  of  the  national  gov- 
ernments, now  look  to  their  ecclesiastical  chief  alone.  This 
is  a  fact  suggestive  of  -caution  to  the  statesman,  while  it  is 
reassuring  to  the  churchman;  but  it  does  not  affect  our  esti- 
mate of  the  situation. 

Supporters  of  Establishment  bid  us  observe  that  in  all  the 
South  American  Republics  except  Mexico  there  is  still  an 
Established  Church.  To  Mexico  must  now  be  added  Brazil, 
which,  since  it  has  cast  off  monarchy,  has  separated  the  Church 
from  the  State  and  placed  all  religions  on  a  footing  of  equality. 
But  Mexico  is  a  striking  exception.  So  late  as  1815  there  was 
an  auto  dafe  where  now  no  religious  procession  can  take  place, 
no  priest  even  can  appear  publicly  in  his  priestly  garments. 
In  the  other  Republics,  however,  the  connection  between 
Church  and  State,  though  it  subsists,  is  greatly  altered,  and 
the  position  of  the  Church  is  far  different,  both  in  regard  to 
establishment  and  in  regard  to  endowment,  from  what  it  was 
in  Spanish  times.  The  priest  has  lost  his  political  hold. 
Such  hold  as  he  still  has  he  owes,  not  to  the  tendency  of 
modern  civilisation,  but  to  the  lingering  influence  of  the 
religious  despotism  of  old  Spain. 

In  all  the  countries  there  is  likely  to  be  a  halt  and  a  breath- 


72  QUESTIONS  OF  THE   DAY. 

ing  time  after  a  great  change.  The  union  of  Church  and 
State  is  naturally  followed  by  a  period  of  half  Establishment, 
with  reduced  revenues,  and  toleration  of  all  creeds,  perhaps 
endowment  of  all  of  them  alike,  and  Ministries  of  Public  Wor- 
ship. But  the  shadow  will  go  back  on  the  dial  when  the 
movement  from  religious  privilege  towards  religious  equality 
is  reversed.  What  is  the  severance  of  the  Church  from  the 
State,  whereby  government  declares  its  entire  neutrality  in 
matters  of  opinion,  but  the  recognition  of  that  freedom  of 
inquiry  which,  while  other  results  of  political  revolution  are 
still  doubtful  or  chequered,  is  the  clear  and  inestimable  gain 
of  our  modern  civilisation?  Free,  opinion  is  not,  while  one 
set  of  opinions  is  hedged  about  with  artificial  reverence  and 
propagated  at  the  expense  of  the  rest.  Disestablishment,  if 
right  in  itself,  will  be  not  merely  the  destruction  of  an  exist- 
ing institution,  it  will  give  full  play  to  the  constructive  agency 
of  truth  which  we  trust  will  build  the  mansion  of  the  future. 
They  are  mistaken  who  tell  us  that  in  the  communities  of 
North  America  there  never  was  a  connection  between  Church 
and  State,  and  therefore  there  can  be  no  tendency  to  its  de- 
struction. The  truth  is  that  in  most  of  the  old  colonies  there 
formerly  was  a  connection.  In  Virginia  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land was  established,  till  religious  equality,  championed  by 
Jefferson  and  Madison,  followed  in  the  wake  of  political  revo- 
lution. In  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  the  connection  was 
close,  as  in  Massachusetts  the  Quakers  found  to  their  cost. 
Nor  was  it  dissolved  without  a  struggle.  In  Massachusetts, 
the  law  provided  for  the  maintenance  of  ministers  as  well  as 
of  schools,  and  for  the  punishment  of  religious  offences,  such 
as  profanity  and  disregard  of  the  Sabbath.  For  a  long  time 
the  political  franchise  was  confined  to  those  who  were  in  close 
communion.  In  Connecticut,  no  church  could  be  founded 
without  permission  from  the  general  court,  and  every  citizen 
was  obliged  to  pay  according  to  his  means  towards  the  support 
of  the  minister  in  the  geographical  parish  of  his  residence. 
Ministers  were  exempt  from  taxation.  The  Blue  Laws,  so 
far  as  they  had  any  real  existence,  were  legislation  against 


THE    QUESTION    OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  73 

sin,  which  implies  an  identification  of  the  civil  with  the 
ecclesiastical  power.  Nothing  of  the  connection  now  remains 
except  the  Sunday  law,  of  which  some  agnostics  complain  as 
theocratic;  restraints  on  blasphemous  publications,  wliich  are 
as  much  dictated  by  regard  for  decency  and  for  the  pul)lic 
peace  as  by  regard  for  religion;  the  exemption  of  Churches 
from  municipal  taxation;  and  a  very  slight  religious  element 
in  the  teaching  of  the  public  schools,  not  so  much  enforced 
by  the  State  as  generally  demanded  by  public  feeling.  The 
exemption  of  Church  property  from  taxation  extends  to  the 
property  of  all  Churches  alike,  nor  is  it  probable  that  it  will 
continue  long. 

The  Congress  of  the  United  States  is  expressly  forbidden  by 
the  first  Amendment  of  the  Constitution  to  establish  any  re- 
ligion. There  are  some  who  would  like  to  insert  into  the 
Constitution  a  recognition  of  the  Deity,  biit  this  proposal 
makes  no  way.  Congress  has  a  chaplain  and  is  opened  with 
prayer,  but  the  chaplaincy  is  not  confined  to  any  particular 
Church.  The  President  of  the  United  States  annually  pro- 
claims a  "national  thanksgiving  day,"  and  has  sometimes 
proclaimed  a  fast,  in  compliance,  however,  with  national  sen- 
timent, and  without  power  of  enforcement.  This  is  mani- 
festly an  ancient  system  attenuated  to  vanishing  point. 

In  French  Canada,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  retains  its 
revenues  in  virtue  of  an  article  in  the  treaty  of  cession,  but  it 
levies  tithes  only  on  its  own  members.  The  authority  vested 
in  the  bishops  for  the  regulation  of  parishes  draws  with  it, 
though  indirectly,  a  certain  amount  of  legal  power  in  muni- 
cipal affairs.  But  the  political  influence  which  makes  it  more 
powerful  in  the  province  than  any  establishment  could  be,  is 
entirely  beyond  the  law. 

In  British  Canada,  the  Church  was  originally  established; 
reserves  of  land  were  set  apart  for  its  ministers,  the  university 
was  confined  to  its  members,  and  its  bishop  had  a  seat  in  the 
Council.  But  as  soon  as  the  colony  obtained  self-government 
Disestablishment  ensued;  the  clergy  reserves  were  secularised, 
and  tlie  university  was  tlirowu  o])ou  to  students  of  all  reli- 


74  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

gions,  while  the  high  Anglicans  seceded  and  founded  a  separate 
university  of  their  own.  A  faint  odour  of  departed  privilege 
still  clings  to  what  was  once  the  State  Church,  clergymen  of 
which  now  and  then  allow  it  to  be  felt  that  they  regard  the 
members  of  other  Churches  as  Dissenters,  while  the  bishops, 
unlike  those  in  the  United  States,  retain  the  title  of  "lord." 
Of  the  endowments,  there  remain  about  forty  rectories  which 
were  carved  out  of  the  clergy  reserves  before  secularisation. 
Otherwise  there  are  no  traces  of  the  connection  between 
Church  and  State  in  nominally  monarchical  Canada,  saving 
those  which  have  their  counterparts  in  the  American  Republic. 
Kot  only  does  religious  equality  in  all  material  respects 
prevail  in  the  United  States  and  in  British  Canada,  but  it 
is  thoroughly  accepted  by  everybody,  and  by  the  immense 
majority  prized  and  lauded  as  an  organic  principle  of  New 
World  civilisation.  In  British  Canada,  a  few  Anglicans  may 
perhaps  look  back  wistfully  to  the  days  of  the  clergy  reserves. 
The  Roman  Catholic  priest  in  the  New  World  as  well  as  in 
the  Old  World  has  in  his  pocket  the  Encyclical,  which  declares 
that  his  Church  ought  everywhere  to  be  established,  and  that 
government  ought  to  use  its  power  for  her  support.  But,  in 
the  New  World,  the  pocket  is  very  deep,  and  there  seems  no 
disposition  to  draw  forth  the  missive.  In  fact,  we  hear  that 
some  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  avow  a 
preference  for  the  free  system.  In  Ontario,  and  in  Manitoba, 
the  Roman  Catholics  have  hitherto  retained  the  privilege  of 
separate  schools,  which,  however,  they  owe,  not  to  Canadian, 
but  to  Imperial  legislation.  In  Manitoba  they  have  come, 
and  in  Ontario  they  are  likely  to  come,  into  collision  with  the 
commonwealth  on  this  question.  But  the  privilege,  though 
a  State  favour,  is  in  the  line,  not  of  connection  but  of  separa- 
tion. The  tribute  in  the  shape  of  public  subsidies  which  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  extorted  by  her  political  influence 
in  States  of  the  Union  where  there  is  a  large  Irish  vote,  is 
paid,  not  in  the  name  of  religion,  but  in  that  of  charity. 
There  is  now  a  strong  reaction  against  any  such  sectarian  use 
of  public  funds. 


THE    QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  75 

The  property  of  the  American  Churches,  and  the  legal  rights 
attached  to  membership  of  them  or  to  their  offices,  are,  of 
course,  in  the  keeping  of  the  civil  law.  This  has  been  adduced 
as  proof  of  the  present  existence  in  America  of  a  connection 
between  the  State  and  the  Church.  But  the  same  reasoning 
would  establish  the  existence  of  a  connection  between  the 
State  and  the  Society  of  Freemasons  or  the  Jockey  Club. 

The  case  in  favour  of  Disestablishment  in  Ireland  was  par- 
ticularly strong,  and  the  cause  of  the  State  Church  was 
Aveighted  with  a  painful  history.  Yet  the  defence  was  able 
to  show  that  the  general  principle  was  involved,  and  that  the 
shafts  of  the  assailants  glanced  logically  from  the  Irish  to 
the  English  Establishment,  while  they  almost  struck  full  on 
the  Establishment  in  Wales.  Let  it  be  observed,  too,  that 
nobody  thought  of  transferring  the  privilege  and  the  endow- 
ment from  the  Church  of  the  minority  to  that  of  the  majority ; 
while  concurrent  endowment,  though  it  had  much  to  recom- 
mend it  from  a  political  point  of  view,  was  proposed  only  to 
be  decisively  rejected. 

What  proof  of  the  drift  of  things  can  be  stronger  than  the 
career  of  Mr.  Gladstone?  He  who  bestowed  on  Ireland  reli- 
gious equality,  had  once  seceded  from  a  government  because 
it  broke  the  principle  of  a  State  religion  by  proposing  a  small 
additional  grant  to  Maynooth.  Once  he  wrote  a  treatise  on 
the  relation  between  Church  and  State  in  which,  soaring  above 
the  ordinary  arguments  derived  from  the  usefulness  of  religion 
to  the  commonwealth  in  sustaining  public  morality,  he  main- 
tained that  the  nation,  like  the  individual,  had  a  conscience 
which  bound  it  to  choose,  support,  and  propagate  the  true 
faith.  He  wished  nobody  to  hold  civil  office  or  exercise 
political  power  who  did  not  belong  to  the  State  Church.  The 
members  of  his  government  were  to  be  "worshipping  men," 
and  were  to  sanctify  their  administrative  acts  by  prayer  and 
praise.  Now  he  is  ready  to  abolisli  the  Established  Churcli  in 
Wales,  provided  the  Welsh  will  vote  for  his  Irish  I' ill,  and  to 
put  the  wliole  question  of  Disestablishment  to  the  vote.  Had 
he  remained  in  office  to  bring  forward  Welsh  Disestablish- 


70  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

ment,  it  would  liave  been  curious  to  see  him  face  his  former 
self. 

Macaulay,  iu  his  review  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  essay,  had  no 
difficulty  in  showing  that  governments  are  meant  to  govern, 
not  to  settle  theological  questions,  and  that  if  no  power  was 
to  be  exercised  except  upon  Church  principles,  much  incon- 
venience, to  which   he    might   have   added   much   hypocrisy, 
would  ensue.     He  had  no  difficulty  in  dissolving  the  ingen- 
ious, but  unhistorical,  hypothesis  of   a   restrictive  treaty  by 
which  the  author  of  the  essay  tried  to  escape  the  aAvkAvard 
consequences  of  an  application  of  its  principles  to  the  Indian 
Empire.     He  had  no   difficulty  in    showing  that  such  half- 
measures  of  persecution  as  the  application  of  civil  disabilities 
were  at  once  unjust  and  futile.     He  might  almost  have  con- 
tented himself  with  saying  that  only  a  person  could  have  a 
conscience,  and  that  the  personality  of  the  nation  was  a  fig- 
ment.    But  when  he  comes,  as  an  orthodox  Whig,  to  propound 
his  own  defence  of  a  Church  Establishment,  saying  tliat  he 
will  give  Mr.  Gladstone  his  revenge,  he  does  give  Mr.  Glad- 
stone his  revenge  indeed.     His  own  theory  is,  in  reality,  as 
untenable  as  that  over  which  he  has  been  enjoying  an  easy 
though  brilliant  triumph.     An  institution,  he  says,  besides  the 
primary  object  for  which  it  is  intended,  may  serve  a  secondary 
object,  just  as  a  hospital  intended  for  the  accommodation  of 
the  sick  may  also  serve,  by  its  architectural   beauty,  as   an 
ornament  to  the  public  street.     Government  is  meant  to  take 
care  of  our  temporal  interests,  and  is  properly  fitted  for  that 
purpose  alone;  but  if  that  is  not  employment  enough  for  it, 
it  may,  as  a  sort  of  by-play,  take  to  providing  for  our  spirit- 
ual interests  as  well.     A  singular  sort  of  by-play,  surely,  it 
would  be.     The  appearance  of  a  building  belongs  to  archi- 
tecture as  properly  as  its  arrangement.     Encouragement   of 
art  by  a  political  government,    which    Maeaulay  adduces  as 
another  illustration,  is  not  less  beside  the  mark,  since  it  is  art 
in  general  that  government  encourages,  not  a  particular  school 
of  artists.     The  civil  ruler  in  establishing  a  religion  need  not, 
Maeaulay  says,  decide  which  religion  is  true,  but  only  which 


THE   QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  77 

is  best  for  Ids  practical  purposes;  lie  will  give  the  Scotch 
Presbyterian  ism,  though  he  may  himself  be  au  Anglican, 
because  Presbyterianism,  though  not  the  most  true,  may  be 
best  suited  for  the  Scotch.  But  what  is  his  criterion?  Is  he 
to  assume  that  the  religion  of  the  majority  is  the  best?  He 
helps  to  secure  to  the  privileged  religion  a  majority  by  estab- 
lishing it,  and  thus  vitiates  his  own  test.  Besides,  how  is  he 
to  measure  and  provide  for  changes  of  conviction,  such  as  in 
the  course  of  inquiry  may  take  place?  Suppose  he  had  been 
called  upon  to  legislate  in  the  period  of  the  Reformation, 
Avhen  the  majority  was  shifting  from  day  to  day.  Nor  does 
Macaulay  wliolly  escape  the  charge,  which  he  brings  against 
Mr.  Gladstone,  of  feeble  and  ineffective  persecution.  It  is 
a  kind  of  persecution,  though  a  very  feeble  and  ineffective 
kind,  to  compel  the  minority  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  a 
religion  which  they  believe  to  be  false,  perhaps  destructive  of 
souls,  and  to  degrade  their  ministers  by  exclusion  from  the  rank 
and  privilege  which  those  of  the  Established  Church  enjoy. 
Macaulay  is  acting  as  a  philosophic  politician,  on  the  principle 
that  all  religions  are  to  the  statesman  equally  useful,  and  he 
forgets  that  to  men  of  strong  religious  convictions  any  religion 
but  their  own  is  dangerous  falsehood,  to  be  forced  to  contribute 
to  the  support  of  which  is  of  all  tyrannies  the  most  repulsive. 
But  are  not  these  mighty  opponents  fighting  in  the  clouds? 
On  earth  we  have  had  despots  imposing  their  religions  on  con- 
quered communities.  Ferdinand  the  Second  imposed  his 
Catholicism  on  Bohemia  when  it  was  wrested  from  Protestant- 
ism, Louis  the  Fourteenth  imposed  his  Catholicism  on  a  Ger- 
man principality  which  fell  into  his  liands.  But  has  any  king 
or  governor  ever  selected  a  religion  by  tlie  pure  light  of  his 
own  conscience  and  imposed  it  on  his  people?  Has  the 
process  ever  been  one  of  speculative  reasoning  or  conviction? 
For  the  origin  of  Establisliment  we  must  go  back,  apparently, 
to  the  days  of  tribal  religion,  in  which  every  member  of  the 
tribe  was,  by  virtue  of  his  birth,  a  loyal  worshipper  of  its 
tutelary  divinity.  Conversion  as  well  as  belief  was  not  per- 
sonal but  tribal,  the  Saxon  or  Dane  passing  with  the  rest  of 


78  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

ills  race,  or  the  portion  of  it  to  which  he  belonged,  and  under 
his  chief,  by  treaty  or  capitulation,  to  the  allegiance  of  the 
conquering  god.  What  is  styled  the  conversion  of  Constan- 
tine  was  in  all  probability  hardly  a  change  of  mind;  it  cer- 
tainly was  not  a  change  of  life;  most  likely  it  was  the  recog- 
nition, by  a  shrewd  and  thoroughly  worldly  politician,  of  the 
ascendancy  which,  partly  through  the  manifest  failure  of  the 
old  gods  to  avert  public  disaster,  Christianity  had  gained  in 
the  Eoman  world.  It  is  probable  that  Clovis  and  Ethelbert 
yielded  mainly  to  the  influence  of  a  superior  civilisation 
impersonated  in  the  missionary. 

The  Christian  Church  inherited  the  Establishment  of  the 
Pagan  Empire.  But  to  the  primal  tradition  of  allegiance  to 
the  national  divinity  was  now  added  belief  in  the  absolute  and 
final  truth  of  a  religion  guaranteed  by  supernatural  revelation 
and  by  an  Infallible  Church  whose  authority  excluded  inquiry 
and  made  dissent  treason  at  once  against  her  and  against 
the  State  with  Avhich  she  was  vinited.  Out  of  the  Church 
Establishment  of  the  Roman  Empire  grew,  on  the  one  hand, 
the  Byzantine  Establishment,  now  represented  by  the  national 
Church  of  Russia,  and  on  the  other  the  Establishment  of 
the  group  of  European  nations  which  formed  a  religious 
federation  under  the  ecclesiastical  sovereignty  of  the  Pope. 
To  what  the  identification  of  the  Church  with  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world  and  the  consequent  identification  of  heresy  with 
treason  led,  as  it  could  not  fail  to  lead,  is  written  on  some  of 
the  most  terrible  pages  of  history.  Religion  has  been  accused 
of  crimes  of  Avhich  the  real  source  was  in  the  union  of  the 
spiritual  with  the  temporal  authority,  and  in  the  temporal 
wealth  of  a  State  Church.  Mere  fanaticism  has  less  to  answer 
for  than  Papal  tiaras  and  archbishoprics  of  Toledo. 

Undoubting  conviction  and  perfect  unity  of  belief  were 
throughout  the  conditions  of  the  system.  When  doubt,  in- 
quiry, and  disagreement  came  in  with  the  Reformation,  the 
basis  of  the  system  was  withdrawn.  At  first,  an  attempt  was 
made,  at  least  by  Protestant  rulers,  to  fall  back  on  national 
Establishments,  to  which  it  was  tlie  aim  of  statesmen,  by 


THE    QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  79 

legal  constraint  or  politic  compromise,  to  make  all  subjects  of 
the  realm  conform.  That  the  religion  of  a  district  went  with 
its  civil  government  was  the  ecclesiastical  principle  of  the 
German  Empire  after  the  Keforniation.  The  belief  that  a 
nation  was  bound  to  have  a  religion,  and  to  support  it  by  legal 
privilege  and  endowment,  had  become  thoroughly  ingrained: 
its  hold  on  the  mind  of  the  Puritan  was  strengthened  by  his 
uncritical  acceptance  of  the  Old  Testament;  and  the  Barebone 
Parliament  of  Independents  wrecked  itself  partly  in  an  attempt 
to  disendow  the  Church.  But  geograpliical  and  political 
boundaries  do  not  coincide  with  those  of  speculative  convic- 
tion. Nationality,  therefore,  in  the  absence  of  coercion, 
could  be  no  basis  for  churchmanship.  The  last  expedient  of 
those  who,  naturally  enough,  were  reluctant  to  see  the  com- 
monwealth finally  divorced  from  religion,  was  to  establish  the 
religion  of  the  numerical  majority.  But  the  weakness  of  siich 
a  principle  has  been  already  shoAvn.  You  falsify  your  own 
test  when  you  artificially  draw  people  into  a  particular  Church 
by  giving  it  privileges  and  endowments.  The  principle  was, 
in  fact,  renounced  when  endoAvment  was  refused  to  the  Church 
of  the  majority  in  Ireland.  The  best  religion,  the  Voluntary- 
ist  will  contend,  for  the  citizen  as  well  as  for  the  man,  is  that 
in  which  he  sincerely  believes;  and  belief,  to  be  perfectly  sin- 
cere, must  be  not  only  unconstrained  but  unbribed. 

Stress  has  been  laid,  in  the  controversy  with  regard  to  the 
Anglican  endowments,  on  the  legal  fact  that  the  Church  of 
England  is  collectively  not  a  corporation,  each  of  her  incum- 
bents being  a  corporation  sole.  She  could  hardly  be  a  corpo- 
ration in  the  Papal  period,  since,  though  locally  Ecclesia 
AngUcana,  she  was  part  of  a  European,  or,  as  her  members 
contended,  of  a  universal  Church,  transcending  all  local  juris- 
diction and  Avith  a  law  of  its  own  transcending  all  municipal 
laAV.  She  could  hardly  be  a  corporation  in  the  national 
period,  because  she  Avas  then  identified  Avith  the  nation,  the 
king  of  Avliich  Avas  her  head.  l>ut,  surely,  such  considera- 
tions, though  they  might  be  deemed  decisive  in  a  hiAvsuit, 
cannot  go  for  much  in  determining  the  expediency  of  a  great 


80  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY, 

political  and  religious  change.  The  same  may  be  said  with 
regard  to  the  question  as  to  the  legal  character  and  origin  of 
tithe.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  tithe  was  in  its  origin  neither  an 
aggregate  of  voluntary  benefactions,  nor  a  tax  imposed  by  the 
State.  The  payment  was  a  religious  duty,  of  the  obligation 
to  perform  which  the  clergy  had  convinced  the  people,  and 
Avhich,  like  other  religious  duties,  was  enforced  indiscrimi- 
nately with  civil  duties  by  the  kings  and  witenagemotes  of 
those  days.  Nobody  can  doubt  now  that  tithe  is  public  prop- 
erty, to  be  dealt  with  according  to  the  rules  of  public  policy 
and  justice,  by  both  of  which  respect  for  vested  interests  and 
local  claims  is  prescribed.  It  is  true  that  the  land  was  bought 
subject  to  the  payment  of  tithe.  But  it  carried  the  benefit  of 
the  religious  ministrations  for  which  the  tithe  was  paid  and 
for  which  the  landowner  will  henceforth  have  to  pay  out  of  his 
own  pocket. 

Arnold's  ideal,  apparently,  was  an  Established  Church,  not 
only  connected,  but  identical,  with  the  commonwealth,  em- 
bracing Christians  of  all  doctrinal  varieties,  and  making  no 
distinction  between  clergy  and  laity  but  one  of  a  merely  offi- 
cial kind.  The  idea  seems  to  have  been  drawn  from  the  com- 
monwealths of  ancient  Greece,  of  the  history  of  which  Arnold 
was  a  passionate  student.  From  Arnold  it  was  transmitted 
to  Stanley,  who  went  so  far  in  his  love  of  State  Churches  and 
their  champions  as  to  show  a  slight  tenderness  for  "Bluidie 
Mackenzie."  The  difficulties  of  application  in  a  country  like 
England,  full  of  religious  divisions,  including  the  insur- 
mountable division  between  Protestants  and  Roman  Catholics, 
need  no  demonstration.  How  are  the  different  sects  to  share 
the  edifices  and  the  endowments  among  them?  How,  if  they 
are  all  to  be  domiciled  under  the  same  roof,  is  peace  to  be 
kept  in  such  a  family?  The  part  of  the  Minister  of  Public 
Worship  would  not  be  easy.  To  the  Empire,  of  course,  with 
all  its  Mahometans  and  Hindoos,  such  an  ecclesiastical  polity 
could  not  be  extended.  But,  above  all,  what  object  is  to  be 
gained  by  encountering  all  these  problems  and  complications 
which  would  not  be  better  gained  through  the  self-adjusting 


THE   QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  81 

simplicity  of  the  free  system?  The  function  assigned  by 
Arnold  to  the  government  seems  to  be  that  of  ecclesiastical 
police,  the  Heedlessness  of  which  the  experience  of  Churches 
in  America,  where  all  goes  on  decently  and  without  disorder, 
shows,  while  it  could  hardly  fail  to  be  needed  in  an  estab- 
lishment for  the  tithes  and  pulpits  of  which  Catholics  and 
every  sect  of  Protestants  were  perpetually  contending. 
Arnold  appears  to  have  forgotten  that,  in  ancient  Athens, 
such  spiritual  life  as  there  was  went  on,  at  least  in  the  time 
of  Socrates,  apart  from  the  State  religion,  and  that  its  pontiff 
sacrificed  to  ^sculapius  a  cock,  not  his  spiritual  convictions. 
The  sacrificing  of  cocks  innumerable  to  ^sculapius,  with  the 
provisions  of  stipends  for  his  official  ministers,  would  proba- 
bly be  the  chief  fruits  of  the  Arnoldian  system. 

Arnold's  ideal  is  a  Christian  commonwealth.  This  he 
would  have,  though  he  would  not  have  conformity  or  ortho- 
doxy, if  his  nation  were  made  up  of  Christian  Churches 
whose  common  principles  would  practically  regulate  public 
life  and  national  action.  In  this  sense  the  American  com- 
monwealth is  Christian.  It  is  far  more  Christian  than  Eng- 
land, or  any  one  of  the  European  nations  with  Established 
Churches,  was  in  the  last  century.  Ostensibly,  of  course,  it 
is  not  Christian  or  religious;  but  surely  it  must  be  the  prac- 
tical, not  the  ostensible,  character  which  has  a  value  in  the 
eye  of  Heaven. 

In  native  American  communities  and  in  Canada,  society 
and  life,  it  may  safely  be  said,  are  not  less  as  religious 
under  the  free  system,  than  in  England  under  that  of  a  State 
Church.  Unquestionably  there  is  far  more  respect  for  reli- 
gion there  than  in  Erance,  where  the  Church  is  still  established, 
but,  in  a  "Librairie  Anti-clericale,"  the  most  hideous  blas- 
phemy is  openly  sold.  The  Church  in  America  and  Canada 
is,  to  fully  as  great  an  extent  as  in  England,  the  centre  of 
})hilanthropic  effort  and  of  social  life.  There  is  fully  as 
much  building  of  churches  and  as  much  church-going,  and 
the  Sunday  in  most  places  is  as  well  kept.  The  very  aspect 
of  an  American  city  or  village,  with  its  spires  and  steeples 

G 


82  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

"pointing  to  heaven,"  though  perhaps  not  "tapering"  with 
consummate  grace,  proclaims  the  community  religious.  Amer- 
ican missions  to  the  heathen  vie  with  those  of  England.  If 
the  public  school  admits  only  a  very  small  element  of  religion, 
the  Sunday  school  is  a  highly  cherished  and  a  flourishing 
institution.  The  Churches  are  enabled  to  distribute  large 
sums  in  charity;  some  of  them  in  fact  do  fully  as  much  as 
is  desirable  in  that  way.  We  hear  of  a  single  offertory  in 
the  church  of  a  great  preacher,  with  a  wealthy  congregation, 
of  $50,000.  While  the  choice  of  a  religion  is  absolutely 
free,  while  no  candidate  for  office  is  asked  to  what  Church 
he  belongs,  so  long  as  his  Church  is  not  politically  aggres- 
sive, while  members  of  the  same  family  belong  to  different 
Churches  without  domestic  friction,  to  be  entirely  Avithout' a 
religion  is  to  incur,  with  most  people,  a  shade  of  social  sus- 
picion. In  no  well-bred  society  would  anything  offensive  to 
religious  feeling  be  endured.  All  this  is  spontaneous  and  has 
the  strength  of  spontaneity,  while  the  religion  of  the  peas- 
antry in  an  English  country  parish  is  not  so  certainly  spon- 
taneous. In  New  York  or  Chicago,  there  is  a  large  foreign 
population,  much  of  it  drawn  from  the  moral  barbarism  of 
Europe.  Yet  even  in  New  York  and  Chicago  religion  is 
strong,  is  well  endowed,  furnishes  the  basis  of  much  social 
effort,  and  copes  vigorously  with  the  adverse  forces.  If  its 
influence  wanes  visibly  towards  the  West,  this  is  not  owing 
to  the  absence  of  an  Establishment,  but  to  the  general  temper- 
ament of  the  Western  people. 

It  is  difficult  to  compare  the  incomes  of  the  clergy  under 
the  two  systems,  but  probably  in  the  Northern  States  the 
clergy  are,  on  the  average,  as  well  off  as  in  England,  cer- 
tainly since  the  reduction  of  the  incomes  of  English  benefices 
by  agricultural  depression.  A  first-rate  preacher  in  a  great 
American  city  has  an  income  hardly  inferior  to  that  of  an 
English  bishop,  when  the  heavy  demands  on  the  bishop  are 
taken  into  account.  Clerical  incomes  might  be  greatly  im- 
proved if  the  Protestant  Churches  between  whose  creeds  there 
is  no  essential  difference  would,  in  the  rural  districts  at  least, 


THE   QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  83 

instead  of  competing,  combine,  and  give  a  good  stipend  to  one 
pastor  where  they  now  give  poor  stipends  to  three.     Nor  does 
it  seem  impossible  that  something  of  this  kind  may  be  brouglit 
about.     Though  there  cannot  be  said  to  be  any  present  likeli- 
hood of  formal  union  among  the  Protestant  Churches,  there 
is  a  strong  tendency  to  mutual  recognition  and  to  interchange 
of  pulpits,  from  which  working  union,  at  all  events,  may  some 
day  result.    It  is  difficult  again  to  draw  a  comparison  between 
the  social  position  of  the  clergy  in  the  United  States  and  their 
social  position  in  England.     There  are  not  in  America  digni- 
taries like  the  English  bishop  and  dean,  enjoying  precedence 
by  virtue  of  their  ecclesiastical  office,  nor  is  there  a  set  of 
clergymen  like  the  country  rectors  of  England,  combining  the 
resident  gentleman  witli  the  pastor.     The  balance  perhaps  is 
rather   in  favour  of  tlie  clergy  under  the  free  system.     No 
American  clergyman  can  be  an  object  of  class  antipathy  to  the 
people,   as  it  seems   the   English  parson  sometimes  is  in  a 
country  parisli.     That  a  clergyman,  if  he  depends  on  his  con- 
gregation for  his  pay,  will  become  their  theological  thrall,  is, 
perhaps,  a  natural  fear.     It  certainly  was  strong  in  the  writers 
of  "Tracts  for  the  Times,"  who,  in  reviving  the  doctrine  of 
Apostolic  Succession,  avowedly  sought  a  new  basis  of  author- 
ity in  place  of  the  support  of  the  State,  which  seemed  to  be 
failing  them,  in  order  that  they  might  save  themselves  from 
becoming,  like  Dissenting  ministers,  dej)endent  on  their  flocks, 
and  being  thereby  constrained   to  pander  to  lay  appetite  in 
their  teaching.     Yet  the  complaint  is  not  often  heard  in  the 
Episcopal  Church,  and  congregations  have  been  loyal  to  the 
pastors   of   their   choice    even  when  their   loyalty  has  been 
severely  tried.     The  layman,  as  a  rule,  is  not  a  theologian; 
nor  is  it  his  tendency,  so  long  as  he  gets  on  well  with  his 
pastor  generally,  to  meddle  with  the  teaching  of  the  pulpit. 
Sometimes   the   stipend    is    paid,    not    by   the    congregation 
directly,  but   through  the   medium  of  a  central   administra- 
tion.    A  clergyman  of  the  American  Episcoj^al  Cliurch  states 
that  under  this  plan  he  never  heard  a  pastor  coni})lain  of  the 
loss  of  power  or  independence,  that  the  tie  of  affection  is  us 


84  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

strong  as  in  the  most  favoured  parishes  of  England,  that  the 
congregations  sliow  no  desire  to  tune  the  pulpit,  and  that  if 
disputes  arise  they  are  easily  settled.  The  clergy,  he  says, 
remain  in  their  parishes  as  long  and  as  securely  as  do  the 
clergy  in  England;  in  his  city  they  have  just  buried  a  rector 
who  had  been  in  the  same  charge  over  fifty  years,  while  one 
of  his  own  predecessors  held  the  cure  for  forty-six  years,  and 
all  around  him  are  men  who  have  held  their  cures  for  twenty, 
thirty,  or  forty  years.  He  knows  of  no  differences  between 
.rector  and  congregation,  nor  does  he  believe  that  amongst 
their  two  hundred  clerg}^  there  is  one  who  wishes  the  Church 
to  be  "by  law  established."  He  admits  that  there  are  cleri- 
cal failures,  but  he  says  that  they  rarely  find  themselves  in 
positions  of  importance,  and  usually  drop  out  early.  In  an 
Established  Church  they  would,  as  a  rule,  not  drop  out,  espe- 
cially if  they  held  family  livings.  Against  any  possible  evils 
arising  from  the  restlessness  or  caprice  of  congregations,  are 
to  be  set  the  torpor  which  may  be  bred  by  security  and  the 
chances  of  irremovable  incapacity  or  decrepitude.  The  parish- 
ioners of  livings  in  the  gift  of  Oxford  colleges,  when  the  col- 
leges were  close,  and  the  presentees  had  lived  many  years  in 
Common  Room,  would  have  had  some  strong  evidence  to  give 
upon  this  subject. 

The  belief  that  religious  extravagance  will  ensue  upon  the 
withdrawal  of  State  control  may,  from  American  experience, 
be  safely  pronounced  groundless.  The  effectual  restraint  on 
extravagance  is  not  State  control,  but  popular  enlightenment. 
Such  works  as  Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon's  "New  America"  and 
"  Spiritual  Wives "  have  created  a  false  impression.  The 
wild  sects  which  he  describes  are,  in  the  first  place,  as  much 
social  as  religious;  and,  in  the  second  place,  the  space  which 
they  occupy  on  the  religious  map  of  the  United  States  is 
insignificant.  The  great  mass  of  the  people  belong  to 
Churches  imported  from  Europe,  and  identical  in  all  essen- 
tial respects  with  their  European  counterparts.  The  only 
new  Church  of  any  importance  is  the  Universalist,  which 
resembles  a  highly  liberal  Methodism  with   the    doctrine  of 


THE   QUESTION   OF  DISESTABLISHMENT.  85 

eternal  piinislnuent  struck  out  by  the  humanitarian  ism  of 
democracy.  Tilings  are  not  as  thoy  were  in  the  earlier  and 
less  settled  times.  A  camp-meeting  now  is  little  more  than 
a  ndigious  picnic  lasting  through  several  days.  "Revivals" 
America  has,  and  so  has  England.  The  Salvation  Army,  if 
that  is  to  be  numbered  among  extravagances,  is  an  English 
product.  Mormonism  is  mainly  recruited  from  England.  No 
sect  is  to  be  found  in  the  New  World  comparable  in  wildness 
to  some  of  which  we  read  as  existing  in  Russia,  where  the 
connection  between  Chvirch  and  State  in  its  closeness  resem- 
bles the  Caliphate.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  there  is  no 
superstition  in  tlie  United  States  so  abject  as  that  which  has 
prevailed  in  the  south  of  Italy,  in  Spain,  or  in  some  parts 
of  Russia. 

It  may  be  that  in  America  preaching  is  more  cultivated 
than  theology,  and  that  this  is  partly  the  consequence  of  a 
system  which  makes  the  power  of  attracting  congregations 
the  passport  to  the  high  places  of  the  clerical  profession.  It 
is,  liowever,  fully  as  much  a  consequence  of  the  rhetorical 
tendencies  of  democracy  in  general.  The  tastes  of  the  unedu- 
cated or  half-educated  are  uncritical,  and  it  is  inevitable  that 
there  should  be,  as  unquestionably  there  is,  rant  in  the  popular 
pulpit,  as  well  as  on  the  political  stump.  Rut  there  is  also 
preaching  of  the  highest  order,  and  such  as,  if  good  is  to  be 
done  by  preaching  at  all,  must  do  a  great  deal  of  good.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  the  English  pulpit  can  vie,  on  the 
average,  with  that  of  the  United  States.  It  has  hardly  had 
a  greater  preacher  or  in  a  higher  style  than  the  lamented 
Phillips  Rrooks.  There  is  a  tendency,  perhaps,  to  overstrain 
for  effect,  but  this  is  an  intellectual  characteristic  of  the  age. 
People  are  no  longer  content  simply  to  "hear  the  Word  of 
God";  they  crave  for  eloquence  as  they  crave  for  ritual,  and 
the  result  of  the  attempt  to  supply  it  is  sometimes  overstrain. 

We  cannot  look  far  beneatli  the  surface  of  religious  life. 
Appearances,  though  strong  and  uniform,  may  deceive.  Be- 
neath all  this  church-building,  church-going,  mission-sending, 
and  Sunday  school  teaching,  there  may  be  growing  hollowness 


86  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

and  creeping  doubts.  That  possibility  is  not  confined  to  the 
Western  hemisphere ;  but  the  tide  of  scepticism  is  less  violent 
Avhen  it  has  no  State  Church  against  which  to  beat.  The 
ganeral  tendenc}',  even  (jf  those  who  lapse  from  orthodoxy  in 
America,  is  not  towards  Atheism,  but  towards  Theism,  with 
Christian  ethics  and,  perhaps,  with  Christian  hopes.  This, 
as  a  break,  at  all  events,  in  a  descent  perilous  to  public 
morality,  though  orthodoxy  may  not  value,  statesmanship 
may. 

If  we  turn  to  the  Episcopal  Church  of  the  United  States 
in  particular,  it  could  hardly  be  expected  that  the  com- 
promise between  Catholicism  and  Protestantism  devised  by 
the  Tudors  and  their  councillors  to  meet  the  circumstances 
of  the  English  people  in  the  sixteenth  century,  or  to  satisfy 
at  once  the  personal  ritualism  of  Queen  Elizabeth  and  her 
political  antagonism  to  the  Pope,  would,  when  transplanted, 
strike  its  roots  very  deep  into  the  soil  of  the  New  World. 
It  is  obvious  that  for  certain  classes  of  men,  Methodism, 
Presbyterianism,  and  Roman  Catholicism  have  attractions 
with  which  Anglicanism  cannot  compete.  The  Anglican 
Church  is  that  of  many  of  the  rich  and  refined,  whose  tastes 
it  suits  by  its  hierarchical  constitution,  the  dignity  of  its 
services,  its  historical  associations,  and  its  indulgent  lati- 
tude. It  also  derives  some  social  prestige  from  its  connec- 
tion with  the  State  Church  of  England,  with  the  episcopate 
and  clergy  of  which  its  episcopate  and  clergy  are  identified. 
Not  that  it  contains  all  the  rich,  or  even  a  moiety  of  them; 
many  of  the  rich  have  risen  from  the  ranks  of  industry  and 
brought  their  Presbyterianism,  their  Methodism,  or  some 
other  popular  religion,  with  them.  Nor  is  it  without  an 
element  drawn  from  the  other  social  extreme.  It  counts 
among  its  members  not  a  few  of  the  very  poor,  especially 
among  the  newcomers  from  England,  who  have  never  been 
accustomed  to  maintain  voluntary  Churches,  and  to  whom  it 
is  often  liberal  of  its  alms.  We  see  here  probably  the  posi- 
tion towards  which  it  Avould  gravitate  if  left  to  itself  without 
State  support  in  England.     It  must  be  remembered,  however, 


THE    QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  87 

tliat  it  lias  in  England  what  it  has  not  in  the  New  World, 
cathedrals  and  parish  churches,  in  which  the  religious  life  of 
the  nation  for  ages  has  centred,  together  with  a  traditional 
hold  on  the  minds  of  almost  the  whole  of  the  wealtliier 
classes.  The  elective  episcopate  of  the  United  States,  if  it 
does  not  contain  any  one  equal  in  learning  to  Lightfoot  or 
Stubbs,  is  fully  the  peer  of  the  English  episcopate  nominated 
by  the  Crown  in  excellence  of  personal  character,  in  pastoral 
power,  energy,  and  influence,  in  administrative  capacity,  and 
in  the  respect  and  attachment  which  it  commands.  The 
action  of  the  laity  when  admitted  to  the  Church  legislature, 
which  the  English  clergy  dread,  has  been  shown  by  experi- 
ence to  be  conservative;  they  once  were  a  check  upon  Evan- 
gelical, they  are  now  a  check  on  Ritualistic,  innovation.  No 
doctrinal  change  of  importance  has  been  made  in  the  Prayer 
Book  beyond  the  omission  of  the  Athanasian  Creed.  Of 
course  there  is  trouble  arising  from  the  Ritualistic  move- 
ment and  the  resistance  to  it;  as  trouble  would  arise  from 
any  attempt  to  combine  in  the  same  Church  two  codes  of 
doctrine  and  two  spiritual  systems  opposed  to  each  other. 
But  the  laity  may  rejoice  that  no  young  incumbent  has 
power,  as  in  England,  to  change  their  worship  from  Pro- 
testant to  Catholic,  leaving  them  as  remedy  but  a  scandalous, 
costly,  and  precarious  lawsuit.  The  election  of  a  bishop 
sometimes  ends,  after  a  protracted  struggle  between  the 
parties,  in  an  unsatisfactory  compromise.  This  is  the  in- 
evitable result  of  the  general  division  of  opinion.  Other 
evils  there  are  which  inhere  in  the  elective  system.  Against 
tliese  we  have  to  set  the  evils  which  inhere  in  the  system 
of  nominations  by  the  Crown,  under  which  a  Prime  Minister, 
notoriously  indifferent  to  religion,  may  capture  the  vote  of  a 
religious  party  by  appointing  its  leaders  to  bishoprics. 

It  is  true  that,  though  severed  from  the  State,  the  American 
Churches  have  not  been  entirely  severed  from  politics.  The 
P>aptists  appear  creditably  to  maintain  their  traditional  pre- 
eminence as  the  pioneers  of  spiritual  freedom,  but  other 
Churches  are  more  or  less  given  to  using  their  influence  in 


88  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

politics  to  the  detriment  alike  of  Church  and  State;  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  with  her  control  of  the  Irish  vote, 
being  the  most  political  of  all.  The  Ameriican  Churches,  or 
too  many  of  them,  sorely  discredited  themselves  by  bowing 
down  before  slavery  in  the  evil  day  of  its  ascendancy,  and 
repudiating  or  treating  with  coldness  those  who  were  striving 
to  awaken  the  slumbering  conscience  of  the  nation;  though  as 
soon  as  the  political  and  social  pressure  was  removed  the 
Churches,  or  such  of  them  as  were  at  heart  opposed  to  sla- 
very, stood  erect  again  and  lent  the  force  of  religious  con- 
viction to  the  nation  in  the  mortal  conflict.  The  foundations 
of  all  spiritual  societies  of  men,  as  of  the  spiritual  man  him- 
self, are  in  the  dust ;  and  it  is  too  much  to  expect  that,  being 
composed  of  citizens  and  members  of  society,  they  shall 
be  exempt  from  the  political  and  social  influences  of  the  day. 
The  Northern  Churches  might  also  plead,  in  excuse  for  their 
timorous  attitude,  the  fear  of  rupture  with  their  Southern 
branches,  which  in  the  case  of  the  Baptists  actually  occurred. 
Pree  Churches,  if  they  cannot  soar  above  humanity,  have 
at  least  the  power  of  self-adaptation  and  self-development. 
To  a  State  Church  this  liberty  is  denied.  It  is  in  vain  that 
clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England  speak  as  though  in  all 
the  changes  of  doctrine  and  system  in  the  Reformation  period 
it  had  been  the  Church  that  moved.  By  the  will  of  Henry 
the  Eighth  the  national  Church  was  made  Protestant  so  far 
as  was  required  by  the  King's  quarrel  with  the  Pope  and  no 
farther;  by  the  will  of  Edward  the  Sixth  and  his  Council  she 
was  made  thoroughly  Protestant  and  united  to  the  Protestant 
Churches  of  the  Continent;  by  the  will  of  Mary  she  was  made 
Catholic  again  and  reunited  to  Rome;  by  the  will  of  Elizabeth 
she  was  once  more  severed  from  the  Papacy  and  settled  on 
the  principle  of  compromise.  All  this  was  done  without  any 
apparent  evidence  of  a  change  of  conviction  on  the  part  of  the 
body  of  the  clergy,  which  seems  to  have  remained  Catholic  in 
sentiment  throughout,  to  have  welcomed  the  Catholic  revolu- 
tion under  Mary,  and  to  have  been  opposed  to  the  Protestant 
revolution  at  the  accession  of  Elizabeth,  though  no  regard  was 


THE    QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  89 

paid  in  any  case  to  its  wishes.^  Bishops  were  consulted  only 
as  theological  experts  or  to  give  colour  to  the  actions  of  the 
government,  not  as  heads  of  an  independent  Church.  Eliza- 
beth, when  they  crossed  her  will,  treated  them  not  only  with 
disregard  l)ut  with  insolence.  James  the  First  acted  as  a 
religious  autocrat  in  his  ecclesiastical  proclamations  and  his 
appointment  of  deputies  to  the  Synod  of  Dort.  When  he 
was  at  enmity  with  the  Catholics,  he  gave  Low  Church  prin- 
ciples the  ascendancy,  by  making  Abbot  archbishop;  when  he 
veered  towards  a  connection  with  the  Catholic  Powers  he  gave 
High  Church  principles  the  ascendancy,  by  bringing  forward 
Laud.  Charles  the  First  again  in  his  reactionary  changes 
acted  as  an  autocrat,  through  Laud  as  his  ecclesiastical  vizier. 
Little  attention  appears  to  have  been  paid  by  the  Primate  to 
the  opinions  of  the  clergy,  or  even  to  those  of  the  hierarchy 
at  large.  It  was  political  poAver  acting  for  a  political  pur- 
pose that,  under  the  Restoration,  finally  cut  off  the  Church 
of  England  from  the  l^rotestant  Churches  on  the  Continent, 
and,  since  the  Romans  deny  her  existence  as  a  Church,  while 
the  Greeks  practically  will  not  recognise  her,  placed  her  in 
the  strange  position  which  she  apparently  holds  of  being  the 
whole  Church  or  no  Church  at  all.  In  the  next  century,  to 
rise  Hallam's  scornful  phrase,  the  State  sprinkled  a  little  dust 
upon  the  angry  insects  by  depriving  the  Church  altogether  of 
the  power  of  legislating  for  herself.  She  never  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  fairly  saying  what  she  would  do  with  the  Methodists, 
who  were  finally  severed  from  her,  not  by  excommunication 
or  secession,  but  by  the  necessity  of  registering  their  chapels 
under  the  Toleration  Act.  The  Episcopal  form  of  Church 
government  was  evidently  perpetuated  by  the  policy  of  the 
Monarchy:  "No  Bishop,  no  King."  In  Sweden  the  same  in- 
fluence retained  Episcopacy  though  the  religion  was  Lutheran. 
In  countries  such  as  Scotland,  Switzerland,  and  Holland, 
where  the  religious  revolution  was  made  by  an  aristocracy 
or  a  democracy,  other  forms  of  Church  government  prevailed. 
Parliament,  wliou  it  was  thrown  open  to  men  of  all  religions 

1  See  Dr.  Child's  Church  and  State  under  the  Titdors. 


90  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

and  of  none,  became  glaringly  unfit  to  legislate  for  the  Church. 
The  Church  thenceforth  was  condemned  to  legislative  immo- 
bility. Change  there  has  been  and  with  a  vengeance;  the 
ritual  has  been  turned  from  a  Protestant  service  into  what  it 
is  very  difficult  to  distinguish  from  the  Mass,  while  in  other 
respects  the  Catholic  system  in  place  of  the  Protestant  has 
been  introduced.  But  this  has  been  done,  not  by  regular  leg- 
islation, but  by  the  irregular  action  of  individual  clergymen, 
at  the  expense  of  unseemly  struggles  and  degrading  litigation, 
sometimes  before  a  tribunal  of  "  Roman  augurs."  To  give  the 
change  the  colour  of  legality,  it  has  been  asserted  that  the 
Liturgy,  not  the  Articles,  is  the  standard  of  faith.  Is  it 
possible  to  believe  that  the  standard  is  to  be  found,  not  in  the 
original  manifesto,  of  which  the  object  was  explicitly  to  set 
forth  doctrine,  but  in  the  ritual,  the  aim  of  the  framers  of 
which  evidently  was  to  retain  as  much  as  possible  of  the  cus- 
tomary and  familiar?  The  Church  is  the  Keeper  of  all  Truth: 
how  came  it  to  pass  that  down  to  the  fourth  decade  of  the 
nineteenth  century  she  remained  ignorant  of  this  all- important 
truth  respecting  herself? 

Few,  surely,  can  look  back  with  pride  on  the  history  of  a 
political  Church:  on  her  servile  submission  to  the  will  of  the 
sovereign;  her  boundless  exaltation  of  the  royal  power  for  the 
sake  of  gaining  royal  favour  and  support;  her  sinister  com- 
plicity with  a  political  reaction  which  plunged  the  nation  into 
a  civil  war ;  her  alliance  with  the  unholy  powers  of  the  Resto- 
ration for  the  purpose  of  crushing  the  Nonconformists;  her 
preaching  of  passive  obedience  when  the  Crown  was  on  the 
side  of  the  clergy;  her  disregard  of  that  doctrine  as  soon  as 
clerical  interests  were  touched  by  the  tyranny;  her  courting  of 
Nonconformist  aid  against  James  the  Second;  her  renewed 
persecution  of  the  iSTonconformists  under  the  leadership  of  the 
infidel  Bolingbroke  when  the  danger  to  lierself  was  past;  the 
wretched  conspiracies  of  her  Jacobite  clergy  against  the  peace 
of  the  country;  the  conduct  of  her  clergy  and  bishops  in 
Ireland,  for  the  calamitous  state  of  which  they  are  partly 
responsible,  and  whence  by  their  intolerance  they  drove  forth 


THE   QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  91 

Presbyterians,  the  sinews  of  Irish  industry,  to  become  the 
sinews  of  American  revolution.  For  the  obstinate  violence  of 
the  government  in  its  dealing  with  the  Americans  and  the 
fatal  rupture  Avhich  ensued,  clerical  Toryism,  as  we  know 
on  the  best  of  evidence,  was  largely  to  blame.  Even  with 
regard  to  questions  of  humanity,  such  as  the  abolition  of  the 
slave-trade  and  of  slavery,  the  record  of  the  State  Church  is 
inglorious,  and  we  find  its  bishops  voting  against  the  repeal  of 
the  law  making  death  the  penalty  of  a  petty  theft.  Was  it 
possible  that  an  institution  morally  and  socially  so  little  bene- 
ficent or  venerable  should  exercise  much  religious  influence  on 
the  people?  True,  besides  her  political  history,  the  Church  of 
Hooker,  Herbert,  Ken,  Butler,  Wilson,  Fletcher  of  Madeley 
and  Simeon,  has  another  history  on  which  her  friends  may 
look  with  much  greater  satisfaction;  but  how  far  was  this  the 
fruit  of  legal  establishment  and  State  endowment? 

To  such  an  extent  did  the  Church  lose  her  spiritual  and 
assume  a  political  character  that,  as  Somers  said,  absolute 
power,  passive  obedience,  and  non-resistance  became,  with  her, 
doctrines  essential  to  salvation.  The  good  Bishop  Lake  said 
on  his  death-bed  that  "he  looked  on  the  great  doctrine  of 
passive  obedience  as  the  distinguishing  character  of  the  Church 
of  England,"  and  Bishop  Thomas  of  Worcester  expressed  the 
same  belief.^  In  the  case  of  Monmouth,  the  bishops  made  the 
profession  of  this  doctrine  a  condition  of  absolution.  It  is 
not  with  mere  refusal  to  promote  or  countenance  political 
innovation,  that  the  State  Church  stands  charged,  but  with 
playing  an  active  and  even  a  violent  part  in  reaction.  The 
torpor,  the  time-serving,  the  pluralism,  the  non-residence,  the 
Trulliberian  sensuality,  as  well  as  the  scandalous  place-hunting 
and  the  adulation  of  profligate  Ministers  and  of  kings'  mis- 
tresses, which  disgraced  the  clergy  in  the  last  century,  are 
now,  happily,  things  of  the  past.  But  when  did  they  prevail? 
When  the  Church  was  most  secure  under  the  protection  of  the 
State.     When  did  they  cease  and  give  place  to  a  spirit  of 

^  See  The  English  Church  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  by  Abbey  and 
Overton,  i.  138. 


«ji  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

reform  and  duty?  When  that  protection  began  to  be  with- 
drawn. 

The  late  Bishop  of  London,  Jackson,  is  quoted  by  Dean 
Hole  as  saying  that  "  when  he  recalled  the  condition  of  apathy, 
indolence,  and  disobedience  into  which  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land had  fallen,  it  seemed  marvellous  to  him  that  it  continued 
to  exist."  The  Dean  himself  remembers  the  days  of  plurali- 
ties and  non-residence,  when  the  people  of  his  parish  never 
saw  or  heard  of  their  vicar,  the  church  being  served  by  the 
curate  who  lived  live  miles  away,  rode  over  for  one  dreary  ser- 
vice on  the  Sunday,  and  was  no  more  seen  for  the  rest  of  the 
week,  being  much  occupied  with  the  pursuit  of  the  fox;  when 
a  pluralist  who  had  come  in  a  conscientious  mood  to  visit 
the  living  from  which  he  had  long  been  an  absentee,  being 
offended  by  a  bad  smell,  turned  back  and  came  no  more ;  when 
the  altar  was  represented  by  a  small  rickety  deal  table,  with 
a  scanty  covering  of  faded  and  patched  green  baize,  on  which 
were  placed  the  overcoat,  hat,  and  riding-whip  of  the  officiat- 
ing minister;  when  the  font  was  filled  with  coffin  ropes, 
tinder-box,  and  candle-ends,  and  was  never  used  for  baptism ; 
when  sparrows  twittered  and  bats  floated  beneath  the  rotten 
timbers  of  the  roof,  while  moths  and  beetles  found  happy 
homes  below.  ^  Since  that  time,  the  Dean  says,  there  has  been 
great  reform,  which  he  traces  to  the  Oxford  Movement.  What, 
let  us  ask  again,  was  the  age  of  decrepitude  and  abuse?  It 
was  the  age  in  which  the  Church  of  England  felt  herself  most 
safely  established.  When  did  the  revival  begin?  When, 
from  the  progress  of  Liberalism,  civil  and  religious,  the 
Establishment  began  to  be  endangered.  What  was  the  Oxford 
Movement?  It  was  practically  a  movement  of  dissent,  though 
reactionary  dissent,  from  the  established  system,  and  was  at 
first  so  regarded  and  treated  by  almost  the  whole  of  the  clergy 
of  the  Established  Church.  Its  progress  has  been  a  perpetual 
conflict  with  the  law  and  with  the  lay  tribunals  by  which  the 
law  was  upheld. 

We  have  been  warned  that  we  must  be  very  cautious  in 

1  See  The  Memories  of  Dean  Hole,  Chap.  xi. 


THE   QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  93 

reasoning  from  the  case  of  a  new  country  like  America  or  the 
British  Colonies  to  that  of  an  old  country  like  England,  wliere 
institutions  are  of  ancient  growth,  and  their  fibres  have 
become  entwined  with  the  whole  political  and  social  frame. 
It  is  a  warning  most  true  and  most  necessary  to  be  observed, 
as  is  its  converse,  which  forbids,  for  example,  the  attempt, 
apparently  not  yet  abandoned,  to  propagate  aristocracy  in  the 
Colonies.  Yet  it  happens,  curiously  enough,  that,  just  when 
this  principle  of  relativity  in  politics  is  for  the  first  time  dis- 
tinctly apprehended,  it  is  beginning  to  lose  somewhat  of  its 
force.  Mankind  is  being  unified  by  the  increase  of  inter- 
course among  the  nations,  and  intelligent  effort  is  gaining  the 
ascendancy  over  unconscious  evolution.  Of  this  Japan,  taking 
the  most  cautious  estimate  of  her  achievements,  is  a  proof. 
America  is  brought  close  to  Europe,  and  the  success  or  failure 
of  political  and  social  experiments  there  already  reacts  upon 
the  Old  AVorld. 

The  activity  produced  among  the  clergy  by  the  effects  of  the 
Oxford  Movement,  and  shown  notably  and  most  laudably  in 
their  ministrations  among  the  poor,  seems  to  have  strength- 
ened the  hold  of  the  Anglican  Church  upon  the  people  in  the 
cities.  In  the  cities  also  Ritualism  enlists  in  its  services 
many  members  of  the  congregation,  and  thus  gains  something 
like  the  advantage  which  Methodism  derives  from  its  extensive 
system  of  active  membership.  Among  the  country  people,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  Church  appears  to  be  losing  ground,  the 
reason  probably  being  that  the  clergy  are  objects  of  suspicion 
to  the  peasantry  from  their  social  and  political  connections. 
Perhaps  also  the  parson  sometimes  is  felt  to  meddle  and  dictate 
too  much.  To  tlie  attractions  of  Ritualism,  while  the  minds 
of  the  people  in  the  cities  are  sometimes  open,  those  of  the 
peasantry  are  completely  closed.  They  lack  the  cultivated 
sensibility  which  feels  the  poetry  of  the  past;  they  are  utterly 
devoid  of  any  liistoric  link  to  the  Middle  Ages;  their  life  is 
hard,  and  what  they  seek  in  religion  is  practical  comfort,  not 
the  gratification  of  fancy  and  taste. 

In  Scotland,  the  Establishnumt  is  more  strongly  rooted  than 


94  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

it  is  in  England,  as  Midlotliian  elections  have  shown.  It  is 
more  strongly  rooted  because  having  been  founded,  not  by 
the  Crown,  but  by  the  religious  leaders  of  the  Commons,  it  is 
more  popular  and  democratic.  For  the  same  reason  it  is  the 
more  orthodox,  its  creed  being  in  keeping,  not  of  a  clerical 
order,  but  of  the  people  at  large,  who  identify  themselves  with 
its  doctrines  and  are  little  reached  by  sceptical  speculation. 

The  policy  of  using  a  State  clergy  as  a  black  police  is, 
surely,  not  less  shallow  than  it  is  insulting  to  the  clergy 
who  are  to  be  so  used.  Let  the  people  once  understand  that 
the  pastor  is  a  black  policeman,  and  the  influence  on  which 
this  policy  relies  will  be  gone.  A  government  gets  fully  as 
much  support  from  free  Churches  in  the  maintenance  of  social 
order  and  for  all  moral  objects  as  it  does  from  any  State 
Church.  The  American  government  got  the  most  strenuous 
and  effective  aid  from  the  Protestant  Churches  as  organs  of 
the  popular  conscience  during  the  Civil  War.  On  the  other 
hand,  that  government  escapes  what,  added  to  the  storms  of 
political  faction,  would  certainly  wreck  it,  entanglement  with 
religious  quarrels  and  with  a  chronic  struggle  between  a  priv- 
ileged Church  and  her  rivals.  It  has  no  Hampden  Case,  no 
Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  no  "Bill  for  putting  down  Ritual- 
ism." Nor  is  it  exposed  to  the  chronic  disaffection  of  a  great 
body  of  Nonconformists  irritated  by  social  disparagement  per- 
haps even  more  than  by  their  religious  grievance.  An  English 
Nonconformist  minister  is  not,  as  such,  disposed  to  revolu- 
tion ;  he  is  not  the  natural  ally  of  Jacobins ;  nor  is  there  any- 
thing in  his  vocation  which  should  lead  him  to  desire  the 
dismemberment  of  the  United  Kingdom.  He  is  a  Radical 
and  a  Home  Ruler  because  it  is  from  that  party  that  he  liopes 
to  get  religious  equality.  That  he  thereby  sullies  his  religion 
is  true.     But  though  a  spiritual  guide,  he  is  of  mortal  mould. 

None,  we  should  think,  would  be  less  disposed  to  hand  over 
Ireland  to  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood  than  tlie  Welsh 
Methodists,  if  they  were  not  tempted  by  the  offer  of  Disestab- 
lishment for  Wales.  Church  Establishment  in  Wales  is  a 
stone  hanging  round  the  neck  of  a  government  swimming  for 


TIIK    QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  '95 

life,  and  the  integrity  of  the  nation  is  imperilled  in  no  slight 
degree  by  the  obstinate  determination  to  force  on  the  Welsh 
Celt  against  his  nature  the  fiat  religion  of  Elizabeth  Tudor. 
Anglicanism  in  Wales  is  the  religion  of  the  gentry,  who  are 
largely  English.  That  of  the  Celtic  peasantry  it  has  not  been 
and  cannot  be.  The  Celtic  peasant  may  be  a  fervent  Catholic 
as  he  is  in  Ireland  and  Brittany,  a  fervent  Presbyterian  as  he 
is  in  the  Highlands,  or  a  fervent  Methodist  as  he  is  in 
Wales,  a  staid  Anglican  he  will  never  be.  Some  defenders  of 
Welsh  Establishment  propose  that  it  should  strengthen  its 
hold  on  the  people  by  adopting  the  Welsh  language.  But  by 
doing  this  it  would  estrange  from  itself  the  cultivated  classes 
to  whom  it  is  really  congenial,  while  it  would  become  an  organ 
of  intellectual  reaction,  not  to  say  an  opponent  of  civilisation. 
Tlie  overwhelming  Gladstonian  majority  in  Wales  is  a  major- 
ity for  Disestablishment.  The  Anglican  clergy  of  Wales  are 
clergymen  of  the  Established  Church  of  England,  and  the 
interests  of  the  Established  Church  of  England  are  theirs. 
Are  they  wise  in  asking  it  to  fight  the  decisive  battle  for  its 
existence  on  a  field  so  unfavourable  to  its  cause  as  Wales? 

Whatever  is  seditious  and  dangerous  in  the  Irish  priesthood 
arises  not  from  its  being  un established,  but  from  its  being 
Irish,  and  Irish  of  the  peasant  class.  It  is  also  rendered 
anti-national  by  its  allegiance  to  a  foreign  head;  but  this  it 
would  be  in  any  case. 

Some  politicians  have  regarded  religion  as  a  disturbing 
force,  for  which  legal  establishment  under  State  control  pro- 
vided salutary  fetters.  If  religion  is  false,  if  the  enthusiasm 
to  which  it  gives  birth  is  a  kind  of  madness,  and  if  the  vices 
of  its  ministers  are  less  dangerous  than  their  virtues,  the 
more  it  is  kept  under  the  control  of  statesmanship  tlie  better. 
But,  then,  why  foster  it  at  all?  If  it  is  true,  and  spiritual 
life  is  not  a  figment,  that  surely  alone  is  genuine  statesman- 
ship which  leaves  conscience  and  worship  entirely  free.  When 
one  looks  back  over  the  history  of  religion,  including  the 
religious  wars,  persecutions,  and  massacres,  one  camiot  help 
wondering,    if  all  this   has  happened  under   the   beneficent 


96  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

regulation  of  statesmanship,  wliat  worse  things  could  have 
happened  in  the  absence  of  such  regulation. 

There  is  looming  up  from  the  clerical  quarter  a  danger  of 
another  kind,  with  which  statesmanship  may  hereafter  have 
to  deal.  If  the  subversion  of  religious  belief  by  science  and 
criticism  goes  on,  it  will  by  degrees  withdraw  that  on  which 
the  ministers  of  religion  rest  for  their  influence,  their  posi- 
tion, and  their  bread.  Their  distress  or  their  apprehensions 
may  become  a  disturbing  element  in  society.  Such  a  body  of 
men  as  the  celibate  clergy  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  striving 
to  make  up  by  social  leadership  for  the  loss  of  spiritual 
authority  in  an  age  of  Socialistic  agitation,  might  be  a  for- 
midable addition  to  the  sources  of  trouble;  nor  have  symptoms 
of  such  a  tendency  been  wanting.  But  this  is  a  liability 
against  which,  if  it  exists,  no  policy  of  Establishment  can 
guard.  On  the  contrary.  Establishment  aggravates  the  danger 
by  keeping  a  standing  army  of  clergy  in  its  pay  irrespectively 
of  the  popular  desire  for  their  ministrations,  and  thus  prepar- 
ing for  a  great  crash,  when  otherwise  the  reduction  might  be 
gradual  and  no  large  body  of  men  might  be  threatened  at  the 
same  time  with  the  loss  of  their  livelihood  and  position. 

Less  coarse  than  the  "  black  police  "  theory,  yet  not  less  ob- 
jectionable or  in  reality  less  insulting  to  the  ministers  of 
religion,  is  the  theory  of  certain  illuminati,  who  would  have  a 
State  Church  of  popular  superstition  for  the  vulgar,  while  the 
cultivated  sit  apart  on  their  thrones  of  light.  This  implies  that 
a  number  of  men,  presumably  superior  in  moral  qualities  and 
highly  educated,  are  to  be  dedicated  to  the  office  of  teach- 
ing useful  falsehood.  Suppose  any  of  them  become  illumi- 
nated, are  they  still  to  remain  in  their  profession?  What  but 
moral  corruption  of  the  profoundest  kind  can  be  the  fruit  of 
such  a  policy?  Yet  such  a  thing  has  been  experienced  as 
the  erection  of  an  Anglican  Church  by  an  unbeliever  in  Chris- 
tianity in  pursuance  of  some  such  view.  It  may  be  suspected 
that  Establishment  has  even  drawn  some  equivocal  recruits 
of  late  from  the  scepticism  which  prevails  widely  and  is  often 
combined  with  Conservatism  in  politics,  while  the  Churches 


THE   QUESTION   OF   DISESTABLISHMENT.  97 

which  rest  ouly  on  free  conviction  have  been  losing  ground. 
It  is  time  to  bethink  ourselves  that  a  Church,  established  or 
unestablished,  must  be  either  an  organ  of  truth  or  an  engine 
of  evil.  Apparently,  no  small  portion  of  the  educated  world 
in  England  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  evidences  of 
supernatural  religion  have  failed.  If  they  have,  to  keep  on 
foot  an  institution  the  function  of  which  is  to  preach  and  pro- 
pagate supernatural  religion  can  surely  be  neither  wise  nor 
right.  When  evidences  of  religion  fail,  religion  must  go, 
and  we  must  look  out  for  some  other  account  of  the  universe 
and  some  other  rule  of  life.  Let  us  have  no  politic  figment 
or  organised  self-delusion,  because,  on  any  hypothesis,  theistic 
or  atheistic,  they  can  only  lead  us  to  destruction.  We  have 
no  chance  of  moving  in  unison  with  the  counsels  of  the  Power, 
Avhatever  it  be,  which  rules  this  Avorld,  or  of  prospering  accord- 
ingly, except  by  keeping  in  the  allegiance  of  the  truth. 

On  the  whole,  it  would  seem  that  a  statesman,  looking  at 
the  matter  from  his  own  point  of  view,  would  be  likely  to  pre- 
pare for  a  change,  and  consider  how  the  change  can  be  made 
with  least  shock  to  the  spiritual  life  of  the  people  and  with 
least  hardship  to  the  clergy.  It  would  seem  that  a  wise 
Churchman  would  be  likely  to  think  twice  before  he  rejected 
a  compromise,  on  the  general  lines  of  Irish  Disestablishment, 
which,  taking  from  him  the  tithe,  now  reduced  in  value,  as 
well  as  the  representation  of  the  Church  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  would  leave  him  the  cathedrals,  the  parish  churches, 
the  rectories,  the  glebes,  the  recent  benefactions,  and  give 
him  a  freedom  of  legislation,  by  the  wise  use  of  which  he 
might,  supposing  Christianity  to  retain  its  hold,  recover, 
through  adaptation  of  institutions  and  formularies  to  the  times, 
part  of  the  ground  which,  during  the  suspension  of  her  legis- 
lative life,  his  Church  has  lost.  Democracy  is  marching  on, 
and  the  opportunity  of  compromise  may  never  return.  It  has 
been  said  in  answer  to  such  a  proposal  that  the  clergy  are  trus- 
tees, and  that  however  desirable  the  compromise  might  be, 
they  can  surrender  nothing  of  their  trust.  Trustees,  however, 
can,  with  the  sanction  of  a  court  of  law,  and  still  more  with 

H 


98  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

that  of  the  Legislature,  consent  to  anything  which  is  for  the 
benefit  of  the  estate.  No  power  not  acting  under  authority 
manifestly  divine  is  qualified  to  say  non  possumus.  Those 
who  do  say  it  can  only  mean  that  they  are  determined  to  go 
by  the  board.  State  religion  perhaps  had  its  day.  Whatever 
had  its  day  is  absolved  by  history,  who  nevertheless  says  to 
it  Vade  in  pace. 

There  is,  it  is  true,  another  course,  besides  Disestablishment, 
which  may  present  itself  to  a  statesman  desirous  of  dealing 
cautiously  with  this  question  and  avoiding  a  shock  to  national 
religion,  the  policy  of  comprehension.  This  was  embraced  by 
Cromwell,  and  was  the  most  liberal  course  possible  in  his  day, 
when  the  opinion  that  a  nation  was  bound  to  profess  and  sup- 
port a  religion  remained  firmly  rooted  in  men's  minds,  as  the 
Avreck  of  Barebone  Parliament  on  the  rock  of  Disestablishment 
showed.  Cromwell's  commissioners,  to  use  Baxter's  words, 
"  put  in  able  and  serious  preachers  who  lived  a  godly  life,  of 
what  tolerable  opinions  soever  they  were,  so  that  many  thou- 
sands of  souls  blessed  God."  It  is  certain  that  before  the  Act 
of  Uniformity,  Episcopal  ordination  was  not  necessary  for 
induction  to  an  English  living,  nor  had  the  Church  of  England 
formally  severed  connection  with  the  Protestant  Churches 
on  the  Continent.  If  ever  a  measure  was  tainted  in  its  origin, 
it  was  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  and  to  repeal  it  in  the  present 
state  of  opinion  would  probably  be  easy.  But  the  practical 
effect  of  the  repeal  would  most  likely  be  defeated  by  the  senti- 
ments of  the  High  Church  clergy,  now  the  dominant  party, 
who  believe  in  apostolical  succession  and  in  the  exclusive  power 
of  an  episcopally  ordained  priesthood  to  perform  the  sacra- 
mental rites  which  are  necessary  to  salvation. 

In  such  a  case,  as  indeed  in  regard  to  all  great  and  organic 
questions,  every  true  patriot  must  wish  that  the  party  struggle 
which  is  tearing  the  nation  to  pieces  could  be  suspended,  and 
that  the  solution  could  be  committed  to  the  hands  of  some 
impartial,  enlightened,  and  open-minded  statesman,  whose 
award  would  be  framed  in  the  interest,  and  would  command 
the  confidence,  of  the  nation  at  large.  We  might  as  well  wish 
for  the  descent  of  an  angel  from  heaven ! 


THE   POLITICAL  CRISIS   IN  ENGLAND. 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND. 

In  the  political  crisis  through  which  Great  Britain  is  pass- 
ing there  are  some  things  peculiar  to  Great  Britain.  There 
are  other  things  interesting  to  all  nations  regulated  or  intended 
to  be  regulated  on  the  British  model;  to  all  nations,  indeed,  of 
which  the  governments  are  elective.  The  apparent  catastrophe 
of  the  party  system  appears  to  afford  as  much  food  for  reflec- 
tion to  an  American  as  to  an  Englishman. 

Under  the  belief  that  she  has  a  monarchical  government  and 
an  hereditary  upper  chamber,  which  assure  her  stability  and 
safety,  England  has  plunged  into  a  democracy  more  unbridled 
than  that  of  the  United  States  under  more  dangerous  condi- 
tions. The  founders  of  the  American  commouAvealtli  looked 
democracy  in  the  face.  The  people  of  the  United  States  have 
a  written  constitution  which  emanated  from  themselves,  and  is 
the  object  of  their  profound  reverence.  They  have  a  Supreme 
Court  to  guard  that  constitution.  They  have  a  President 
whose  veto  is  a  salutary  reality,  and  whose  authority  was  dis- 
played the  other  day  on  the  Silver  Question.  They  have  a 
Senate,  elected  on  a  principle  comparatively  conservative,  and 
really  co-ordinate  as  a  legislative  body  with  the  popular  house, 
whose  Bills  it  amends  or  throws  out  without  fear.  The  federal 
structure  of  their  commonwealth,  like  that  of  a  ship  in  com- 
partments, is  a  safeguard  against  any  sudden  flood  of  revolu- 
tion. In  their  constitution  is  an  article  forbidding  legislation 
which  would  impair  the  faith  of  contracts.  The  conditions  in 
their  case  are  less  dangerous  because  they  have  greater  abun- 
dance of  land,  a  far  larger  number  of  freeholders,  less  pressure 
on  the  means  of  subsistence,  comparatively  little  Socialism, 

101 


102  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

what  tliey  have  of  it  being  mainly  imported  from  Europe.^ 
If  America  lias  her  dangerous  foreign  element,  Great  Britain 
has  the  Irish  colonies  in  her  cities.  Nor  is  there  in  America 
any  economical  crisis  like  agricultural  depression  with  its 
social  consequences  in  England,  for  the  recent  financial  storm 
was  the  consequence  of  unsound  management,  over  speculation, 
and  a  deranged  currency  rather  than  of  economical  disturbance. 
The  American  people  are  comparatively  free  from  class  division 
and  jealousy.  They  are  eminently  law-abiding,  and  are  on  the 
side  of  government,  regarding  it  as  their  own;  while  the 
masses  in  England,  the  artisans  especially,  have  learnt  to  think 
of  government  as  a  power  apart  from  them,  if  not  as  their 
natural  enemy.  Nor  does  the  scepticism,  which  in  England  is 
unsettling  society  and  shaking  the  nerve  of  authority,  prevail 
so  much  or  produce  such  effects  in  a  nation  which  has  no  State 
Church  to  be  assailed,  the  religion  of  which  is  voluntary,  and 
which  is  given  more  to  industry  than  theological  speculation. 
In  America  union  has  decisively  triumphed  over  Secession. 
In  every  member  of  the  United  Kingdom  disunionism  has  now 
been  set  at  work  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  Irish  Home  Eule. 
America  is  a  commonwealth  with  no  responsibilities  or  liabili- 
ties beyond  itself;   Great  Britain  is  the  centre  of  an  empire 

1  In  the  first  edition  it  was  here  said  that  America  had  also  "com- 
paratively little,  upon  the  whole,  of  industrial  war,  the  native  Ameri- 
can v?orkman,  as  a  rule,  not  being  given  to  conspiracy  and  striking." 
There  have  since  occurred  the  Coxeyite  movement,  the  coal  strike  in 
Pennsylvania,  and,  what  is  more  serious  than  either,  the  railway  strike  at 
Chicago.  These  have  ensued  upon  the  depression,  reduction  of  wages, 
and  loss  of  employment  caused  by  a  terrible  financial  crisis.  It  is 
believed  that  the  statement  in  the  original  text,  qualified  as  it  was,  was 
true  when  it  was  made,  and  with  regard  to  normal  times.  The  violence 
in  connection  with  the  strikes  was  foreign.  The  railway  strike,  however, 
being,  as  appears,  without  justification,  ordained  by  the  fiat  of  an  irre- 
sponsible despot,  and  stopping  the  wheels  of  commerce  and  civilisation,  is 
a  terrible  exhibition  of  the  spirit  of  trade  unionism  and  of  the  sufferings 
which  are  in  store  for  communities  unless  they  can  protect  themselves 
against  it.  More  has  been  said  on  the  subject  in  the  preface  to  the 
present  edition. 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN  ENGLAND.  103 

with  responsibilities  and  liabilities  all  over  the  world.  Ameri- 
can industries  are  natural  and  pretty  sure  to  recover  from  the 
shock;  whereas  of  the  great  industries  of  England,  some  are 
more  or  less  artificial,  owing  their  existence  or  their  magnitude 
to  the  retardation  of  manufactures  by  war  or  misgovernment  in 
other  nations,  and  if  they  receive  a  severe  shock  from  revolu- 
tionary violence  are  not  so  sure  to  recover.  From  the  danger 
of  foreign  war,  with  which  Great  Britain  is  always  threatened, 
America  is  free. 

In  America,  there  can  be  no  amendment  of  the  federal 
constitution  without  the  distinct  announcement  of  the  specific 
amendment  to  be  made,  or  without  the  consent  of  three-fourths 
of  the  people,  signified  through  the  State  Legislatures  or 
Conventions.  Nor  can  the  constitutions  of  the  States  be 
amended  without  a  submission  of  the  specific  question  to  the 
people  of  the  State.  So  cautious  is  the  federal  process  that 
there  was  no  amendment  for  sixty  years.  What  takes  place  in 
England?  Not  an  amendment  of  the  constitution,  but  a 
fundamental  change  of  it,  involving  a  legislative  dismember- 
ment of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  probably  entailing  further 
revolution  of  the  same  kind,  is  concerted  by  a  party  leader 
with  his  Irish  confederates  behind  the  back  of  the  nation,  and 
forced  upon  the  country  by  an  unscrupulous  use  of  the  party 
machine.  Not  only  had  a  distinct  knowledge  of  the  measure 
been  withheld  from  the  people  at  the  last  general  election,  but 
with  regard  to  its  principal  feature,  retention  of  the  Irish 
members,  the  people  had  been  totally  misled,  the  framer  hav- 
ing pledged  himself  that  nothing  would  induce  him  to  be  a 
party  to  an  arrangement  such  as  that  Avhich  he  afterwards 
proposed.  The  issue,  instead  of  being  submitted  distinctly  to 
the  people,  was  mixed  up  with  a  dozen  other  issues,  some  of 
them  purposely  raised  to  obscure  and  prejudice  it.  The  meas- 
ure was  then  forced  upon  the  House  of  Commons,  most  of  its 
provisions  without  any  fair  discussion,  by  the  closure,  applied 
at  the  will  of  a  party  leader,  whose  real  majority,  subtracting 
the  twenty-three  Irish  votes  to  which  Ireland  by  his  own 
admission  lias  no  title,  was  eleven.     Nor  is  there  anything  to 


104  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

prevent  other  revolutionary  measures  from  being  carried  by 
the  same  means  as  the  repeal  of  the  union  with  Ireland. 

There  is  happily  much  in  the  state  of  England  now  unlike 
the  state  of  France  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution.  Above  all, 
England  has  in  her  upper  classes  a  reserve  of  moral  and  politi- 
cal force  which  France  had  not,  and  which  extremity  may  call 
forth.  She  is  also  comparatively  free  from  the  financial  diffi- 
culty which  in  France  brought  on  the  crash,  though  a  large 
public  debt,  with  power  in  the  hands  of  the  multitude,  is 
dangerous,  while  the  fiscal  system  of  England  is  not  without 
peril  since  it  is  totally  inelastic,  and  the  disuse  of  any  one 
of  the  great  articles  of  consumption  on  which  the  revenue 
is  raised  would  produce  a  great  deficit.  Experience  has 
shown  that  the  people  will  not  bear  a  new  tax,  and  that  the 
income  tax  or  the  succession  duty  is  the  financier's  only  resort. 
When  the  many  vote  the  taxes  and  the  few  pay  them,  peril 
surely  must  be  at  hand;  and  demagogism  has  now  learned 
that  it  can  bribe  the  masses  with  legislative  largesses  at  the 
expense  of  the  rate-payer  on  a  scale  far  transcending  the  bri- 
bery of  a  private  purse. 

For  a  few  years  under  the  commonwealth  England  had  a 
written  constitution.  Otherwise  she  has  had  only  fundamental 
statutes,  such  as  the  Great  Charter,  with  its  confirmations,  the 
Petition  of  Eight,  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  and  the  Bill  of 
Rights,  all  of  which  are  restraints  on  the  tyranny  of  the 
Crown,  not  on  the  excesses  of  the  people.  Not  only  has 
England  had  no  written  constitution ;  paradoxical  as  the  state- 
ment may  seem,  she  has  had  no  constitution  at  all,  if  by  con- 
stitution is  meant  a  settled  system  with  fixed  relations  among 
the  component  powers.  What  she  has  had  has  been  a  balance 
of  forces  which,  oscillating  more  or  less  through  her  history, 
has  now  been  finally  upset,  the  Crown  having  been  divested  of 
all  authority,  the  House  of  Lords  of  all  but  a  suspensive 
veto,  while  supreme  power  is  vested  in  the  House  of  Commons 
or  in  the  electoral  caucus,  to  which  the  House  of  Commons  has 
itself  in  turn  become  a  slave.  What  is  complacently  styled  con- 
stitutional development  lias  in  fact  been  a  secular  revolution. 


THE   POLITICAL  CRISIS    IN   ENGLAND.  105 

The  upshot  is  that  whereas  American  democracy  is  organised, 
British  democracy  is  unorganised,  and  while  American  democ- 
racy is  provided,  British  democracy  is  unprovided,  with  safe- 
guards against  revolution. 

The  hallowed  word  "  constitutional "  has  been  used  as  if  it 
represented  something  real  and  capable  of  being  ascertained, 
though  rather  occult,  some  supreme  though  somewhat  mystical 
standard  by  which  all  political  claims  could  be  tried  and  all 
political  excesses  could  be  restrained.  This  was  almost  comi- 
cally apparent  on  the  occasion  of  the  repeal  of  the  paper  duty 
in  18G0,  which  made  way  for  a  cheap  press.  The  Commons 
passed  repeal,  the  Lords  threw  it  out.  Then  arose  the  question 
whether  the  Lords,  who  could  not  constitutionally  initiate  or 
amend  a  taxing  Bill,  could  constitutionally  throw  out  a  Bill 
repealing  a  tax,  thus  continuing  the  impost  which  the  Com- 
mons had  voted  away.  A  grand  display  of  political  meta- 
physics ensued.  Mr.  Denison,  then  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  was  asked  what  he  thought.  "Why,"  said  he, 
"  they  talk  about  constitutional  principle ;  but  the  whole  matter 
is  this :  the  Lords  cannot  initiate  a  money  Bill  because  the 
Commons  would  throw  it  out;  they  cannot  amend  a  money  Bill 
because  the  Commons  would  disagree  to  the  amendment;  but 
they  can  throw  out  this  Bill  repealing  a  tax,  because  there  is  an 
end,  and  the  Commons  have  no  more  to  say." 

The  theory  was  government  by  a  King  and  legislation  by 
two  Houses  of  Parliament,  one  hereditary  and  aristocratic,  the 
other  elective  and  popular,  the  two  being  coequal  in  authority, 
except  that  the  popular  House  had  the  power  of  the  purse, 
which  it  gradually  improved  into  supremacy.  In  the  reign  of 
Edward  I.,  the  magnanimous  perpetuator  of  a  revolutionary 
creation,  the  fact  may  have  tallied  with  the  theory.  The 
government  was  in  the  King,  and  the  Commons,  though  in 
themselves  weaker  than  the  Lords,  may  have  been  strengthened 
by  alliance  with  the  Crown.  Under  Edward's  feeble  successor 
the  balance  was  turned  in  favour  of  the  aristocracy.  It  was 
redressed  in  favour  of  the  Crown  by  the  glories  of  Edward 
III.,  though  the  Commons  at  the  same  time,  as  holders  of  the 


106  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

purse,  gained  by  the  King's  need  of  supplies  for  his  wars;  and 
Richard  II.,  in  spite  of  the  miserable  end  of  his  father's  reign, 
succeeded  to  authority,  which  his  folly  and  that  of  his  fa- 
vourites cast  away.  Henry  IV.,  with  a  doubtful  title  and  a 
mutinous  nobility,  was  thrown  for  support  on  the  Commons, 
and  on  the  Church,  which  was  still  a  great  power  in  the  State, 
and  the  alliance  with  which  was  cemented  by  the  statute  for 
the  burning  of  heretics.  Agincourt  restored  to  the  Crown  an 
authority  which  was  again  forfeited  by  the  loss  of  France,  the 
imbecility  of  Henry  VI.,  and  the  misrule  of  those  who  had 
him  in  their  hands.  The  suicide  of  aristocracy  in  the  Wars 
of  the  Roses  left  the  Crown  almost  despotic,  and  its  despotism 
was  enhanced  by  the  ecclesiastical  revolution  under  Henry 
VIII.,  after  which  the  Church  ceased  to  be  a  political  power, 
and  its  influence  was  transferred  to  the  Crown.  What  the 
Tudors  had  held  the  Stuarts  lost,  while  they  tried  to  extend  it 
in  altered  times  and  against  the  decisive  tendencies  of  the 
nation.  The  English  Revolution  in  the  time  of  Charles  I., 
like  the  American  Revolution  and  the  French  Revolution, 
cleared  the  ground  for  a  new  edifice.  A  written  constitution 
became  necessary.  A  written  constitution  was  framed  under 
the  name  of  the  Instrument  of  Government,  with  a  Protector 
for  life,  a  standing  Council  of  State,  in  the  appointment  of 
which  the  Protector  and  Parliament  went  shares,  and  a  single 
House  of  Parliament,  with  a  property  qualification  high  enough 
to  be  a  test  of  responsibility  and  intelligence,  yet  not  higher 
than  industry  and  frugality  might  generally  hope  to  attain. 
Had  the  Commonwealth  of  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland 
such  a  constitution  now,  it  would  be  in  little  danger  of  dis- 
memberment by  the  Irish  Celts.  Republican  jealousy  and  the 
death  of  the  Protector  just  when  his  system  was  taking  root, 
prevented  a  fair  trial  of  the  experiment.  Cromwell  himself 
had  been  driven  by  the  stress  of  his  conflict  with  irreconcilable 
Republicans  in  the  Commons  to  have  recourse  to  the  revival  of 
the  Upper  House  in  a  nominative  form.  This  failed,  as  other 
nominative  Senates  have  failed,  and  by  withdrawing  the 
strength  of  government  from  the  popular  chamber,  aggravated 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  107 

the  difficulty  which  it  was  intended  to  remove.  The  Restora- 
tion, however,  was  a  reaction,  not  against  the  Protectorate,  but 
against  the  military  anarchy  by  which  the  Protectorate  was 
followed.  During  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  there  was  some- 
thing like  equilibrium,  though  uneasy  and  unsteady,  the  Crown 
at  the  time  of  the  Popish  Plot  being  swept  before  the  popular 
storm,  while  the  close  of  the  reign  was  almost  despotic,  though 
tyranny  was  exercised  under  strictly  legal  forms.  James  II. 
repeated  the  mistake  of  Charles  I.  in  an  aggravated  shape,  the 
Jesuit  taking  the  place  of  Laud.  With  him  the  monarchy  fell 
as  a  constitutional  power,  its  fall  being  only  broken  by  the 
personal  ascendancy  of  William  III.,  who  to  the  last  was  his 
own  foreign  minister. 

Power  then  passed  to  the  landed  aristocracy  and  gentry, 
whose  chiefs  composed  the  House  of  Lords,  and  who  not  only 
elected  the  county  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  out  of 
their  own  body,  but  also  controlled  the  elections  of  a  large 
part  of  the  borough  members  through  pocket-boroughs  or  by 
local  influence.  Local  government  through  the  Quarter  Ses- 
sions, composed  of  squires  as  justices  of  the  peace,  was  largely 
in  the  same  hands.  The  landowners  had  thoroughly  perfected 
the  system  of  maintaining  the  economical  basis  of  their 
ascendancy  by  the  entail  of  their  family  estates.  The  princi- 
pal checks  to  aristocratic  ascendancy  were  the  rivalries  and 
cabals  among  the  great  families  themselves.  These,  and  the 
odium  created  by  aristocratic  selfishness  and  corruption,  enabled 
George  III.  to  recover  a  large  measure,  not  of  constitutional, 
but  of  backstairs  power.  He  was  able  to  put  a  backstairs  veto 
on  Fox's  India  Bill,  as  well  as  to  prolong  by  his  personal 
determination  the  war  with  the  American  colonies.  Once  more 
there  was  a  sort  of  equilibrium  among  the  three  powers  in  the 
State,  the  government  being  largely  in  the  King  or  in  the 
minister  of  his  personal  choice,  while  each  of  the  Houses  had 
its  slian;  of  power,  the  balance  between  them  being  dressed 
by  the  Parliamentary  patronage  in  the  hands  of  the  Peers  and 
the  manifest  inadequacy  of  the  unreformed  House  of  Commons 
as  a  representation  of  the  people.     But  the  equilibrium  was 


108  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

totally  and  forever  destroyed  by  the  current  of  liberalism 
which  set  in  when  the  war  with  Napoleon  was  over,  overturn- 
ing the  Bourbon  monarchy  in  France  and  aristocratic  govern- 
ment  in  Great  Britain  at  the  same  time. 

When  the  Peers  succumbed  to  the  Eeform  Bill,  supreme 
power  passed  definitively  to  the  House  of  Commons,  leaving 
nothing  to  the  Peers  on  any  great  question  but  a  suspensive 
veto.  The  last  faint  exercise  of  personal  power  by  the  King 
was  the  dismissal  of  the  Whig  Ministry  by  William  IV.  in 
1834.  Thenceforth  the  ministers  who  formed  the  executive 
government  were  appointed  and  dismissed,  and  the  whole 
policy  of  the  kingdom  was  determined  by  the  majority  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Still  the  phantom  wore  the  crown. 
Still  the  nation  believed  itself  to  be  a  monarchy,  and  prayed 
every  Sunday  that  Heaven,  which  is  supposed  to  enter  kindly 
into  the  illusion,  would  dispose  the  King's  heart  to  govern 
aright.  A  party  leader  bringing  in  a  party  Bill  for  the  exten- 
sion of  the  suffrage  could  say,  and  perhaps  persuaded  himself, 
that  the  effect  of  his  measure  would  be  to  "unite  the  whole 
people  in  a  solid  body  round  their  ancient  throne."  The  same 
politician  points  out  the  House  of  Lords  to  popular  vengeance, 
as  "  a  power  not  upon  or  behind  the  throne,  but  between  the 
throne  and  the  people,  stopping  altogether  the  action  of  the 
constitutional  machine."  Could  self-delusion  or  constitutional 
hypocrisy  further  go?  The  House  of  Lords  has  still  con- 
tinued to  be  taken  for  a  co-ordinate  branch  of  the  Legislature. 
Nations  in  quest  of  a  constitution  have  continued  to  imi- 
tate the  British  model  as  they  found  it  described  in  Blackstone 
or  De  Lolme,  and  a  strange  dance  some  of  them  have  been  led. 

Still  the  House  of  Commons  was  a  government.  It  had  still 
a  measure  of  independence  and  of  authority;  it  was  still  a 
national  council.  Its  electorate,  after  the  settlement  of  1832, 
was  still  tolerably  responsible  and  intelligent.  Nor  was  it 
by  the  fated  advance  of  democracy  or  by  any  occult  force,  that 
the  settlement  of  1832  was  broken  up,  though  the  current  of 
European  opinion  was  setting  in  a  democratic  direction.  The 
settlement  was  broken  up  by  the  personal  ambition  of  party 


THE   POLITICAL   CEISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  109 

leaders,  Avho  invoked  the  gale  of  popularity  to  fill  their  flag- 
ging sails.  There  was  in  reality  little  popular  demand  for 
the  measure,  and  when,  after  its  first  introduction  it  had  to  be 
withdrawn  for  a  time,  no  excitement  followed.  But  it  had 
set  revolution  going  again.  Then  came  a  Dutch  auction, 
in  which  Liberal  and  Conservative  bid  against  each  other,  and 
the  prize  was  finally  knocked  down  to  the  Conservative  party, 
then  under  a  leader  who,  as  Carlyle  said,  treated  England  as 
his  milch  cow,  and  who  had  found  for  himself  a  patron  and 
a  partner  in  a  magnate  instinct  enough  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Turf  to  be  ready  to  do  anything  that  would  "dish  the 
Whigs."  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  there  is  good  reason 
to  believe,  that  intelligent  artisans  would  have  acquiesced  in 
an  educational  qua-lification;  but  the  Tory  leader  had  been 
advised  by  his  election  agents  that  ignorance  would  be  on  his 
side,  and  he  had  no  scruple  in  acting  on  that  advice. 

Electoral  qualifications  of  any  real  value  have  been  swept 
away.  Such  as  are  left  will  go;  before  long  perhaps  even 
that  of  sex  will  be  abolished  by  tlie  help  of  Conservatives 
who  fancy  that  the  women  will  vote  upon  their  side.  Of  those 
who  now  possess  the  franchise,  an  immense  number  must  be 
ignorant  of  all  questions  of  State,  liable  to  be  misled  by  the 
gross'est  illusions,  hurried  away  by  the  blindest  passions, 
cozened  by  the  veriest  charlatans.  It  was  generally,  and  not 
without  reason,  believed  that  the  Tichborne  claimant  would 
have  been  sent  to  Parliament  with  immense  majorities,  could 
he  have  been  a  candidate  at  the  time  of  the  trial.  But  the 
constituencies  are  a  sovereign  power,  unrestrained,  and  can, 
through  their  subservient  representatives,  at  any  time  pass 
measures  which  would  shake  society  to  its  foundation,  and 
might  bring  ruin  on  themselves.  They  are  sovereign  not  only 
over  their  own  country  but  also  over  a  vast  empire.  The 
British  artisan  who  is  shouting  One  man,  one  vote,  forgets 
that  he  is  the  lord  of  two  hundred  and  eighty  millions  of 
Hindoos  who  have  no  vote  at  all,  and  if  they  had  votes  miglit 
some  day  vote  him  and  liis  cottons  out  of  Hindostan.  The 
American   democracy,    in   spite   of   strong   temptation,    btitli 


110  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

material  aud  sentimental,  shrank  from  the  annexation  of 
Hawaii  because  it  felt  its  unfitness  for  the  government  of 
dependencies  even  on  so  small  a  scale.  Yet  a  democracy  far 
less  regulated,  and  on  the  whole  far  less  intelligent  than  that 
of  America,  is  taking  on  itself  the  government  of  vast  depend- 
encies all  over  the  world. 

The  House  of  Commons,  after  putting  under  its  feet  the 
Crown  and  the  House  of  Lords,  has  in  its  turn  been  put  under 
the  feet  of  the  .caucus.  Its  independence,  its  authority,  its 
dignity,  and  its  self-respect  are  departing.  By  the  closure  it 
is  reduced  to  a  voting  machine  of  which  the  caucus  turns  the 
crank.  Its  members,  instead  of  regarding  themselves  as  free 
counsellors  of  the  nation,  regard  themselves .  as  delegates  of 
the  caucus,  pledged  to  do  its  bidding,  and,  if  their  conscience 
rebels,  to  resign.  The  other  day  a  Gladstonian,  seeing  the 
deception  which  had  been  practised  upon  the  country  by  the 
framers  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill  in  the  retention  of  the  Irish 
members  and  the  infamy  which  was  in  store  for  Great  Britain, 
found  himself  unable  to  digest  the  Bill.  His  duty  to  the 
country  was  to  vote  against  it.  But  the  wretched  law  of  his 
Parliamentary  being  compelled  him  to  decline  that  duty  and 
place  his  resignation  in  the  hands  of  the  caucus  under  the 
form  of  accepting  the  Chiltern  Hundreds.  No  one  doubts  that 
many  a  Gladstonian  has  voted  for  the  Home  Rule  Bill  under 
the  same  influence  and  against  his  sense  of  duty  to  the  coun- 
try. An  imperious  idol  of  the  caucus  and  impersonation  of 
its  tyranny  can  indulge  his  autocratic  temper  by  trampling  on 
the  liberty  and  majesty  of  what  was  once  the  foremost  assem- 
bly in  the  world.  It  does  not  appear  that  the  Conservative 
members  feel  themselves  much  more  independent  than  the 
Radicals.  If  they  did,  their  leader  would  hardly  have  failed 
to  make  use  of  a  majority  of  a  hundred  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
dressing the  balance  of  the  constitution  and  providing  safe- 
guards against  revolutionary  violence.  Nor  would  he  and  his 
colleagues  have  been  fain  to  bid  against  their  antagonists  for 
popularity  by  paying  tribute  to  socialistic  Radicalism,  which 
they  did  with  the  usual  effect  of  blackmail. 


THE   rOLITICAL   CRISIS  IN  ENGLAND.  Ill 

The  Septennial  Act  still  preserves  to  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons  a  small  measure  of  independence  for  the  first 
year  or  two  of  the  Septennial  term.  It  is  to  be  rej)ealed,  the 
duration  of  Parliaments  is  to  be  reduced,  and  the  last  spark 
of  a  legislative  independence  offensive  to  the  caucus  is  to  be 
extinguished.  A  faint  remnant  of  the  principle  that  taxation 
and  representation  go  together  is  left  in  the  plurality  of  votes. 
This  is  to  be  swept  away,  and  one  man,  one  vote,  is  to  be  the 
rule.  The  Prime  Minister  proclaims  that  the  poor  man 
instead  of  the  rich  man  ought  to  have  two  votes;  in  other 
words  that  both  poverty  and  ignorance  ought  to  be  masters  of 
civilisation. 

The  most  effective  institution  of  a  conservative  kind  yet  left 
is  the  non-payment  of  members.  This  also  is  marked  for 
abolition,  and  the  Bill  which  abolishes  it  will  probably  receive 
the  involuntary  votes  of  members  of  Parliament  who  abhor  it 
in  their  hearts,  knowing  well  that  it  will  thrust  them  from 
their  seats.  In  theory,  the  system  of  payment  enables  lowly 
merit  to  take  the  place  to  which  the  public  voice  calls  it,  but 
which  poverty  prevents  it  from  taking;  in  fact,  it  is  a  direct 
incentive  to  men  by  no  means  of  merit  to  engage  in  politics, 
the  noblest  of  all  callings  but  the  vilest  of  all  trades.  The 
country  will  presently  be  in  the  hands  of  professional  politi- 
cians, drawn  from  a  class  which  prefers  living  upon  the  public 
to  honest  labour.  These  men,  giving  their  lives  to  their  trade, 
will  oust  men  of  principle,  who,  having  no  personal  objects  to 
gain,  will  grow  weary  of  the  incessant  struggle,  wliile  they 
will  be  disgusted  with  the  task  of  flattering  Crowds  and  with 
the  debasing  tyranny  of  the  "machine." 

Statesmanship  already  shows  the  influence  of  the  stump,  the 
incessant  exactions  of  which  leave  a  public  man  no  leisure  for 
rest  or  thought,  and  force  him  to  be  always  committing  him- 
self, probably  beyond  his  convictions,  in  his  efforts  to  excite 
the  crowd.  Peel  as  well  as  Pitt  would  have  been  petrified  by 
an  invitation  to  speak  at  any  election  but  his  own.  Pitt  is 
believed  to  have  made  only  two  political  speeches  out  of  Par- 
liament in  liis  life,  and  one  of  these  Avas  a  single  sentence.     A 


112  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

minister  could  then  spend  liis  vacations  in  maturing  his  meas- 
ures, and  he  could  keep  his  own  counsels  till  the  time  came 
for  disclosing  them  to  Parliament.  All  public  men  had  time 
for  study  and  reflection.  With  the  enlargement  of  the  con- 
stituencies and  the  extension  of  the  popular  element  in  gov- 
ernment, the  change  became  to  some  extent  inevitable.  It 
has  its  consequences  all  the  same,  and  they  are  not  much  re- 
deemed by  the  education  which  public  meetings  are  supposed 
to  give  the  people,  but  which  they  would  receive  as  well 
through  the  public  press. 

The  falling  off  in  the  character  of  the  House  of  Commons  is 
apparent  to  all.  A  deliberative  assembly,  in  the  proper  sense 
of  the  term,  it  can  hardly  be  said  in  recent  times  to  have 
been;  for  it  has  always  been  at  once  too  partisan  and  too 
large.  On  any  party  question  a  debate  has  hardly  been  more 
worthy  of  the  name  of  a  deliberation  than  the  exchange  of  fire 
between  two  regiments  in  a  battle.  But  now  the  House  has 
lost,  Avith  independence,  order  and  dignity.  Language,  which 
half  a  century  ago  would  have  been  fatal  to  the  member  who 
had  used  it,  or  could  have  been  prevented  from  being  fatal  to 
him  only  by  the  most  complete  apology,  is  now  used  with 
impunity;  and  if  the  Speaker  compels  its  withdrawal,  is 
withdrawn  in  a  style  which  amounts  to  a  repetition  of  the 
outrage.  Irish  manners  are  uncontrolled.  Wrangling  has  at 
last  culminated  in  a  braAvl. 

It  is  strange  to  see  a  society  intellectual,  refined,  luxurious 
even  to  excess,  and  ever  inventing  new  refinements  and  new 
luxuries,  yet  all  the  time  sedulously  removing  the  barriers 
which  protect  it  from  a  political  deluge.  Talleyrand  said  that 
the  great  motive  power  in  the  French  Eevolution  was  vanity. 
Vanity  is  at  work  here  too.  Vanity  it  is  that  makes  M. 
Jourdain  play  the  demagogue.  But  the  chief  element  of  dis- 
turbance is  the  madness  of  the  party  game,  which  that  of  the 
gambling-table  itself  does  not  surpass.  Party  politics,  in 
fact,  partake  very  much  of  the  excitement  of  the  Turf  and  are 
sustained  a  good  deal  by  the  same  spirit.  Paley  thought  that 
the  money  which  he  paid  in  taxes  for  the  support  of  Parlia- 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  113 

mentary  government  with  its  lively  scenes  could  not  have  been 
spent  in  any  way  whicli  would  liave  afforded  him  more  fun. 
If  it  were  only  money  that  this  sport  cost! 

The  danger  is  enhanced  by  the  passion  for  amusement  and 
the  levity  which  seem  to  prevail,  and  again  remind  us  some- 
wliat  of  the  eve  of  the  French  Eevolution.  From  one  eminent 
journal  we  learn  that  the  scratching  of  Cloister  for  the  Grand 
National  is  the  greatest  event  of  the  time,  and  that  the  bet- 
ting community  is  larger  than  that  interested  in  politics, 
religion,  or  any  serious  question  of  the  day.  Another  assures 
us  that  gambling  and  betting  prevail  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest  social  grade ;  that  they  prevail  among  women  as  well 
as  among  men;  that  private  roulette  tables  are  common  and 
are  openly  sold  by  fashionable  furniture  dealers;  that  every- 
body is  panting  for  the  unearned  increment,  "everybody 
yearns  to  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  to  wear  fine  clothes,  and 
sparkle  with  jewels  bought  with  money  for  whicli  no  work  has 
been  done."  Such  a  spirit  is  not  favourable  to  the  national 
consideration  of  political  problems  however  pressing  and  dan- 
gerous, while  its  influence  is  apt  to  be  extended  from  private 
to  public  life. 

Among  public  men,  at  the  same  time,  there  seems  to  pre- 
vail a  fatalistic  belief  that  they  are  being  swept  along  by 
the  irresistible  current  of  inevitable  change,  and  that  there 
is  nothing  for  it  but  surrender.  What  they  take  for  fate  may 
after  all  be  the  fiat  of  the  trade-union  or  its  Boss,  and  no 
more  irresistible  than,  at  the  outset,  were  those  revolutionary 
forces  which  in  the  end  hurried  France  into  the  abyss. 

The  elective  system  has  revealed  its  fatal  weakness.  The 
theory  is  that  the  electors  choose,  and  that  they  will  choose  the 
best  man  to  the  extent  of  their  lights.  There  might  be  some 
agreement  between  the  tlieory  and  the  fact  when  the  electors 
met  in  the  county  court  or  in  the  town  hall,  held,  it  may  be 
supposed,  some  sort  of  a  conference,  and  voted  under  the 
guidance  of  their  local  leaders,  whose  influence  probably  was 
healthy  n])on  the  whole.  ])Ut  now,  there  is  no  meeting,  there 
can  be  no  conference,  no  personal  communication  or  concert  of 

1 


114  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

any  sort  among  the  electors  in  a  large  constituency.  These 
particles  of  political  power  are  as  the  grains  in  a  sand-heap, 
which  cannot  combine  or  co-operate,  though  they  may  be 
blown  in  the  same  direction  by  the  wind.  What  is  to  bring 
them  together?  What  is  to  designate  for  them  the  candidates 
whom  they  cannot  designate  for  themselves?  What  is  to  com- 
bine the  votes  of  a  sufficient  number  of  them  to  constitute  a 
majority  and  form  a  basis  for  a  government?  The  practical 
answer  is,  organised  party.  So  inevitable  does  this  expedient 
appear,  and  so  thoroughly  are  we  inured  to  it,  that  some 
political  philosophers  have  begun  to  represent  the  division 
into  two  parties  as  seated  in  human  nature,  every  child  being, 
as  the  comic  opera  has  it,  "born  a  little  Conservative  or  a 
little  Liberal."  One  writer,  assuming  party  to  be  an  ordi- 
nance of  nature,  fancies  that  he  has  discovered  its  law,  which 
is  that  of  alternate  ascendancy,  with  a  change  at  each  general 
election;  so  that  at  each  election  the  party  whose  turn  it  is  in 
the  course  of  nature  to  be  beaten  Avill  have,  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  system,  knowingly  to  fight  a  hopeless  battle. 
These  philosophers  do  not  observe  that  you  might  as  well  try 
to  bisect  a  wave  as  humanity,  that  the  shades  of  temperament 
are  numberless,  tliat  the  same  man  is  conservative  on  some 
subjects,  liberal  on  others,  that  political  temperament  varies 
with  age,  old  men  being  generally  conservative,  but  also  varies 
with  circumstance,  your  young  aristocrat  being  the  most  vio- 
lent conservative  of  all.  Nor  do  they  observe  that  this  sys- 
tem, which  they  suppose  to  be  a  universal  necessity  of  human 
nature,  is  in  truth  a  recent  product  of  British  politics  or  of 
the  politics  of  nations  which  have  followed  the  leading  of 
England.  Factions  of  course  there  were,  with  the  usual  con- 
sequences of  faction,  at  Athens,  in  Rome,  and  in  the  Italian 
Republics.  But  this  system  of  government  by  two  parties, 
perpetually  contending  for  the  offices  of  State,  and  each  trying 
to  make  government  by  the  other  impossible,  is  a  modern 
British  institution.  By  the  hypothesis  both  parties  are  neces- 
sary to  the  system.  Why,  then,  should  each  of  them  be  always 
denouncing  and  trying  to  exterminate  the  other?     Party  may 


THE   rOLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  115 

be  mora],  and  a  .good  citizen  may  to  a  certain  extent  be  a  parti- 
san, so  long  as  there  is  an  organic  question  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance to  dwarf  all  otlier  questions  and  justify  submission  to 
party  discipline  till  the  paramount  object  is  attained.  But 
wlien  there  is  no  organic  question,  what  is  there  to  make  party 
moral?  What  is  to  hold  a  party  together,  no  principle  being 
at  stake?  It  can  hardly  be  expected  that,  merely  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  up  a  system,  the  members  of  the  commu- 
nity, when  there  is  nothing  really  to  divide  them,  will  range 
themselves  artificially  into  two  political  armies  carrying  on 
an  objectless  and  senseless  yet  venomous  war  with  each  other. 
The  answer  is,  the  Machine;  and  this  must  have  workers 
and  payment  for  workers,  in  other  words,  entails  corrup- 
tion in  some  form,  and  bring  with  it  a  political  morality 
notoriously,  if  not  avowedly,  inferior  to  the  morality  of 
ordinary  life,  so  that  you  will  have  the  loAvest  principles  of 
action  in  the  highest  sphere.  But  party  is  now  everyAvhere 
in  a  state  of  disintegration,  brought  on  by  the  increased  rest- 
lessness of  intelligence,  the  multiplication  of  political  sects, 
the  clash  of  special  interests,  and  the  enhanced  activity  of 
individual  ambition,  for  which  there  are  not  enough  prizes  or 
bribes.  In  Germany,  in  France,  in  every  Parliamentary 
country,  there  is  a  multiplication  of  parties  which  is  making 
party  government  impossible.  Even  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment there  are  now  five  parties,  the  Conservatives,  the  Liberal- 
Unionists,  the  Gladstonian  Liberals,  the  Radicals,  and  the 
Irish,  wliile  the  Irish  party  is  internally  split  into  Parnellites 
and  anti-Parnellites.  Bismarck  made  Parliamentary  govern- 
ment possible  in  (Jermany  by  his  personal  ascendancy,  and  by 
accepting  or  buying  supjjort  wherever  he  could  find  it.  In 
France,  the  instability  has  been  alarming.  In  Italy,  disinte- 
gration went  to  such  a  length  that  the  leaders  of  adverse 
parties  had  to  come  to  an  understanding,  and  make  an  arrange- 
ment for  the  purpose  of  averting  Parliamentary  anaroliy.  In 
Holland  and  Belgium  the  same  spectacle  is  seen.  In  Austra- 
lia, governments  have  been  ephemeral  to  a  comical  degree. 
In  England,  tlie  newly  enfrancliised  and  ignorant  masses  being 


116  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DxVY. 

led  by  a  name,  the  only  thing  they  can  tinderstand,  we  have 
had  a  strong  demagogic  leadership,  which,  however,  to  sustain 
it  requires  largesses  of  destruction.  In  Canada,  there  has 
been  a  stability  of  corruption.  These  are  accidents.  The 
general  tendency  is  towards  the  dissolution  of  party  and  of  the 
government  that  rests  on  it.  Foresight  and  continuity  of 
policy  are  impossible  under  these  conditions.  At  the  same 
time  a  fatal  facility  is  given  to  every  selfish  interest  and 
every  fanatical  sect  of  compassing  its  pet  object  by  playing 
upon  the  balance  of  party  and  thus  forcing  the  nation  to  do  its 
will.  Of  this  the  Silver  Bill,  forced  upon  Congress  by  the 
votes  of  the  Silver  States,  is  one  example;  another  is  the  anti- 
national  and  degrading  homage  paid  alike  in  the  United  States 
and  in  England  to  the  Irish  vote. 

The  truth  is  that  the  system  of  party  and  cabinet  government, 
with  all  the  philosophy  which  it  has  generated,  is  the  peculiar 
growth  of  the  political  situation  in  England  consequent  upon 
the  Revolution  of  1688.  Ev^en  in  the  time  of  Charles  II., 
though  there  were  Tories  and  Whigs,  there  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  party  organisation;  what  was  a  cabinet  in  germ 
was  dubbed  as  a  cabal.  The  parties  for  a  time  were  dynastic, 
the  struggle  between  the  Stuart  and  Hanoverian  lines  having 
been  transferred  from  the  field  of  battle  to  the  political  field, 
and  thus  each  of  them  had  a  bond,  moral  after  its  fashion,  or 
at  all  events  superseding  the  ordinary  obligation  to  follow 
conviction  on  particular  questions.  Afterwards,  when  the 
dynastic  struggle  had  subsided,  the  parties,  especially  that 
of  the  great  Whig  houses,  were  closely  identified  with  family 
connection,  and  with  the  struggles  of  different  sections  of  the 
aristocracy  for  power  and  place.  The  players  in  the  game 
were  all  born  members  of  a  political  and  social  circle,  owing 
allegiance  to  its  interests  and  traditions.  The  popular  element 
was  small  and  the  scope  for  demagogism  very  narrow.  Cabal 
and  corruption  there  might  be,  and  there  were  on  a  scandalous 
scale,  but  there  was  not  the  slightest  danger  of  Parliamentary 
anarchy  or  of  revolution.  The  country  was  in  the  hands  of  a 
single  class,  that  of  the  landed  aristocracy  and  gentry. 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  117 

Let  the  upliolders  of  party  government  trace  the  course  of 
this  Irish  Question.  Let  them  trace  the  process  by  which 
a  proutl  and  mighty  nation  has  been  compelled  to  surrender 
to  a  contemptible  conspiracy,  and  dragged  to  tlie  brink,  not 
only  of  dismemberment,  but  of  self-degradation  so  deep  as 
that  of  allowing  Ireland  with  a  Parliament  of  her  own  to 
send  eighty  members  to  the  British  Parliament  as  a  garrison 
of  coercion  for  the  purpose  of  controlling  British  policy  in  the 
Irish  interest  and  keeping  the  subservient  allies  of  the  Irish 
in  power. 

A  petty  rebellion  broke  out  in  Ireland,  the  last  of  a  series 
since  the  Union,  all  equally  weak.  Had  it  taken  the  field,  it 
would  have  ended,  like  that  of  Smith  O'Brien,  in  a  cabbage 
garden.  Instead  of  taking  the  field,  it  chose  Parliament  as 
the  scene  of  its  operations,  used  votes  in  place  of  pikes,  and 
tried  to  Avreck  the  House  of  Commons  by  obstruction,  while 
its  agrarian  wing,  which  alone  was  strong,  entered  on  a  cam- 
paign of  organised  outrage  in  Ireland.  Had  the  House  of 
Commons  not  been  faction-stricken  and  caucus-ridden,  the 
attempt  to  wreck  it  by  obstruction  would  have  been  at  once 
put  down,  if  necessary  by  the  expulsion  of  the  conspirators. 
The  Liberal  government  did  its  duty  as  far  as  a  party  govern- 
ment can.  It  procured  the  necessary  powers  for  the  Irish 
executive,  and  had  it  been  patriotically  supported,  or  even 
treated  with  forbea.rahce,  it  would  in  time  have  suppressed 
rebellion,  leaving  such  agrarian  questions  as  needed  settle- 
ment to  be  settled  by  remedial  legislation.  But  the  Conserva- 
tive party,  then  in  opposition,  had  for  many  years  been  led  on 
the  principle,  enunciated  in  an  article  entitled  "Elijah's  Man- 
tle," which  appeared  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  on  the  occasion 
of  the  unveiling  of  a  statue  of  Lord  Beaconsfield : 

"  Possibly  the  character  of  Lord  Beaconsfiekl  was  also,  to  some 
extent,  imperfectly  appreciated  by  Lord  Salisbury,  to  whom,  for  some 
reason  or  other,  an  unknown  master  of  the  ceremonies  h<ad  reserved  the 
very  secondary  function  of  moving  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Sir  Stafford 
Northcot(»  fm*  having  unveiled  the  statue.  Speaking  to  the  delegates  of 
the  various  Conservative  associations  on  the  eve  of  the  ceremony,  Lord 


118  QUESTIONS   OF  TPIE   DAY. 

Salisbury  condemned  in  forcible  language  'the  temptation'  which,  he 
said,  '  was  strong  to  many  politicians  to  attempt  to  gain  the  victory  by 
bringing  into  the  lobby  men  whose  principles  were  divergent,  and  whose 
combined  forces,  therefore,  could  not  lead  to  any  wholesome  victory.' 
Excellent  moralising,  very  suitable  to  the  digestions  of  the  country 
delegates,  but  one  of  those  puritanical  theories  which  party  leaders  are 
prone  to  preach  on  a  platform,  which  has  never  guided  for  any  length  of 
time  the  action  of  politicians  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  which, 
whenever  apparently  put  into  practice,  invariably  results  in  weak  and 
inane  proceedings.  Discriminations  between  wholesome  and  unwhole- 
some victories  are  idle  and  unpractical.  Obtain  the  victory,  know  how 
to  follow  it  up,  leave  the  wholesomeness  or  unwholesomeness  to  critics. 
Lord  Salisbury,  when  he  used  the  words  quoted  above,  must  have  for- 
gotten that  a  few  hours  later  he  was  going  to  take  part  in  unveiling  the 
statue  of  a  statesman  whose  whole  political  life  was  absolutely  at  variance 
with  Lord  Salisbury's  maxim.  The  condemnation  of  a  particular  method 
of  gaining  political  victories  was  in  reality  a  condemnation  of  the  political 
career  of  the  Earl  of  Beaconsfield."     Fortnightly  Beview,  May,  1883. 

The  conscious  heir  of  Elijah's  mantle  had  a  precedent,  at 
once  exact  and  memorable,  for  the  design  which  he  now  formed 
and  induced  his  party  to  adopt,  in  the  very  manoeuvre  by 
which  Elijah  himself  had  originally  climbed  to  power.  In 
1846  the  Ministry  of  Sir  Eobert  Peel  was  thrown  out,  his 
party  was  broken  up,  and  the  way  was  cleared  for  the  rise  of 
Mr.  Disraeli  to  leadership  by  a  coalition  of  the  Protectionist 
Conservatives  with  the  Whigs,  Radicals,  and  Irish  against  an 
Irish  Coercion  Bill.  By  this,  and  a  series  of  applications  of 
the  same  strategy,^  continued  for  thirty  years,  the  character  of 
the  Conservative  party,  once  the  party  at  all  events  of  honour, 
had  been  reconstructed  on  strategical  principles,  and  was  ready 
for  Elisha's  manipulation.  As  in  1846,  the  Co:iservatives 
virtually  coalesced  with  the  rebel  Irish,  and  by  the  united 
vote  the  Liberal  government  was  thrown  out,  the  author  of  the 

1  See  Lord  Malmesbury's  Memoirs,  Vol.  I.,  page  424  :  "  February 
9th  [IS 54].  —  Government  beaten  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  a  motion 
of  Mr.  Chambers  to  investigate  the  claims  of  an  English  company  at 
Madeira  against  the  Portuguese  Government.  I  fear  Disraeli  voted  against 
the  Government,  as  it  is  his  policy  to  join  with  anybody  in  order  to  defeat 
them." 


THE   rOLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  119 

scheme,  when  the  division  was  announced,  jumping  upon  the 
benches  and  waving  his  handkerchief  in  frantic  joy.  Of 
the  Conservative  party,  the  head  was  a  marquess  with  every- 
thing to  lift  him  above  the  vulgar  influences  of  faction.  Yet 
he  was  too  much  under  the  yoke  of  party  to  say,  when  he  was 
approached  with  a  strategical  proposal,  that  while  he  was  a 
Conservative  and  would  gladly  see  power  in  Conservative 
hands,  he  was  above  all  things  an  English  nobleman,  and 
would  never  sanction  an  attempt  to  overthrow  the  Queen's 
Government  when  it  was  struggling  with  rebellion.  Then 
followed  the  abandonment  of  the  Act  for  the  protection  of  life 
and  property  in  Ireland,  and  the  Maamtrasna  debate,  with  the 
speeches  of  Lord  Eandolph  Churchill  and  Sir  Michael  Hicks- 
Beach,  condemned  by  the  most  honourable  organs  of  their 
own  party.  Let  us  be  just  and  remember  the  sliare  which  the 
Conservative  party  as  well  as  the  Gladstonian  party  has  had 
in  bringing  all  this  disaster  and  disgrace  on  the  country. 

A  dissolution  of  Parliament  ensued.  Up  to  this  time  the 
Liberal  leader  had  treated  the  Irish  movement  as  rebellion, 
had  denounced  its  leader  as  "wading  through  rapine  to  dis- 
memberment," had  himself  announced  the  arrest  of  Parnell  to 
an  applauding  multitude  at  Guild  Hall,  had  imprisoned  him 
and  scores  of  his  followers  without  trial  under  the  Crimes  Act, 
had  been  willing  to  part  with  three  members  of  the  Cabinet 
rather  than  that  the  Crimes  Act  should  not  be  renewed.  He 
went  to  the  country  asking  for  a  majority  which  would  enable 
him  to  settle  the  Irish  question  independently  of  Mr.  Parnell 
and  his  followers.  This  the  Irish  prevented  by  voting  with 
the  Conservatives,  exemplifying  thereby  the  influence  of 
unscrupulous  minorities  under  the  party  system.  Finding 
then  that  he  had  lost  power,  and  that  he  could  only  regain  it 
by  aid  of  the  Irish  vote,  the  Liberal  leader  at  once  threw  liim- 
self  into  the  arms  of  the  rebels,  and  of  their  confederates  the 
American  Fenians,  avowed  enemies  of  the  British  nation.  He 
who  had  been  Iialf  a  century  in  public  life,  had  been  often  as 
Cabinet  Minister  responsible  for  Irish  measures,  and  had  liiui- 
self  disestablished  the  Irish  Church,  pretended  that  up  to  this 


120  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

time  he  had  been  ignorant  of  the  Irish  qnestion,  ignorant  of 
the  leading  facts  of  Irish  history,  and  that  a  new  light  had  now 
dawned  upon  his  mind.  He  declared  that  when  he  threw 
Parnell  and  his  followers  into  gaol  he  had  not  understood  what 
Mr.  Parnell's  objects  were.  He  put  forth  for  the  edification 
of  the  faitliful  a  history  of  the  previous  workings  of  his  own 
mind,  showing  that  it  had  long  been  tending  towards  Home 
Kule ;  an  avowal  which  implied  that  he  had  been  all  the  time 
committing  the  nation,  and  allowing  his  colleagues  to  pledge 
themselves  night  after  night  —  his  Home  Secretary  in  the 
most  desperate  style  —  to  a  policy  which  in  his  heart  he  sus- 
pected to  be  wrong.  In  concert  with  the  rebel  leaders,  now 
transformed  from  inmates  of  his  gaols  into  his  privy  coun- 
sellors and  his  masters,  he  framed  a  measure  virtually  for  the 
repeal  of  the  Union;  that  Union  of  which  he  had  been  wont  to 
speak  as  the  grand  achievement  of  Pitt,  and  the  one  effectual 
guarantee  of  peace  between  religious  factions  in  Ireland,  but 
which  he  now  denounced  as  a  masterpiece  of  fraud  and 
iniquity,  using  in  his  transports  of  rhetorical  fury  even  coarser 
terms.  That  the  new  light  which  dawned  upon  the  leader's 
mind  at  tlie  moment  when  he  found  the  Parnellite  vote  indis- 
pensable to  him  should  have  dawned  at  the  same  moment  on 
the  minds  of  his  followers  passes  ordinary  belief.  Bright, 
who  did  not  speak  at  random,  averred  that  there  were  not 
twenty  members  of  the  Liberal  party  outside  the  Irish  section 
really  in  favour  of  their  leader's  Bill,  which  was  as  much  as  to 
say  that  the  mass  voted  under  the  lash  of  party  against  their 
consciences  for  that  which  they  must  have  known  was  ruinous 
to  their  country.  So  much  for  the  aphorism  that  party  is 
a  kind  of  patriotism.  Beaten  by  the  vote  of  the  independent 
section  of  his  followers,  and  maddened  by  defeat,  the  Liberal 
leader  broke  all  bounds  and  gave  the  restraints  of  patriotism 
to  the  winds.  He  who  owed  all  to  culture  and  the  support  of 
the  cultivated,  ap2:)ealed  to  the  lowest  and  the  worst  passions 
of  the  multitude,  the  jealous  hatred  of  the  "masses"  for  the 
"classes,"  of  the  ignorant  for  those  better  educated  than 
themselves.     He   recklessly   falsified   history   to   prove   that 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS    IN   ENGLAND.  121 

intelligence  had  ahvays  been  the  enemy  of  justice.  He 
rekindled  the  cold  ashes  of  provincial  antipathy  in  Scotland 
and  Wales  as  well  as  in  Ireland.  To  inflame  Irish  rebellion, 
he  revived  and  exaggerated  the  evil  memories  of  Irish  history. 
He  abetted  resistance  to  law  in  Ireland,  bidding  an  excitable 
and  savage  race  "  remember  Mitchelstown."  Because  England 
had  voted  against  him,  he,  the  son  of  a  Liverpool  merchant, 
bred  at  Eton  and  Oxford,  having  sat  almost  all  his  life  for 
English  constituencies,  having  owed  his  entrance  into  Parlia- 
ment to  the  patronage  of  an  English  nobleman,  renounced  the 
name  of  Englishman,  traduced  England  in  a  foreign  press, 
welcomed  the  calumnies  of  her  foreign  assailants.  He  allied 
himself  morally  with  declared  enemies  of  the  realm,  the 
Eenians  of  the  United  States,  and  received  assistance  in  elec- 
tions from  their  dynamite  fund.  A  Conservative  more  than 
half  his  life,  who,  if  the  place  had  been  open,  would,  as  many 
thought,  have  been  leading,  the  Conservative  party,  he  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  revolutionary  radicalism  and  dallied  with 
all  the  spirits  of  confiscation  and  destruction.  He  who  had 
upheld  Church  establishment  on  the  highest  principles,  hold 
out  disestablishment  as  a  bribe  to  get  votes  for  his  Irish  policy. 
At  last,  after  solemnly  pledging  himself  never  to  consent  to 
the  retention  of  an  Irish  representation  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment when  Ireland  had  a  Parliament  of  her  own,  he  carried 
with  his  Irish  confederates  a  measure  retaining  eighty  Irish 
members  to  coerce  Great  Britain.  The  Lords  having  rejected 
a  Bill  from  a  leading  provision  of  which  members  of  the 
Cabinet  in  that  House  allowed  it  to  be  seen  in  debate  that 
they  dissented,  he  threatened  them  with  destruction.  l>ut 
knowing  that  an  appeal  from  their  verdict  to  the  nation  on  the 
simple  issue  of  Home  Rule  would  result  in  his  defeat,  he  put 
off  his  appeal  till  he  sliould  have  had  time  to  inflame  and  con- 
fuse the  mind  of  the  people  by  a  number  of  revolutionary 
proposals,  hoping  thus  to  force  through  his  Irish  measure  on 
false  issues.  This  policy  is  in  effect  avowed  by  his  partisans 
without  shame.  How  much  of  this  treatment  do  the  upholders 
of  party  government  think  that  any  country  can  bear?     The 


122  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

higher  you  place  Mr.  Gladstone's  intellect  and  character,  the 
greater  his  public  services  in  former  days  have  been,  the  more 
tremendous  is  the  lesson. 

We  have  seen  also  the  tendency  to  demagogic  despotism 
inherent  in  the  system  of  universal  suffrage  with  large  and 
ignorant  masses.  Incapable  of  self-guidance,  the  masses  blindly 
follow  a  leader  about  whom  many  of  them  know  nothing  but 
his  name,  but  whom  they  have  been  taught  to  regard  as  the 
man  of  the  people.  The  result  is  a  state  of  things  far  from 
identical  with  genuine  liberty.  "Old  Hickory,"  the  idol  of 
the  American  populace,  in  the  hour  of  his  ascendancy  was 
enabled  to  trample  on  real  freedom  in  the  United  States  much 
as  a  "G.O.M."  is  now  enabled  to  trample  on  real  freedom  in 
Great  Britain.  American  admirers  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  looking 
on  at  the  scene,  admit  that  he  has  hardly  any  supporters  among 
the  upper  or  middle  classes,  that  is,  in  the  classes  of  intelli- 
gence, the  influence  of  which  it  thus  appears  may  be  eliminated 
from  government  when  the  uninformed  multitude  finds  a  man 
after  its  heart. 

As  it  is  in  national,  so  it  is  in  municipal  affairs.  Here, 
also,  for  large  constituencies,  the  elective  system  seems  to 
break  down.  In  former  ages  the  city  was  a  social  and  politi- 
cal unit;  the  citizens  knew  each  other;  they  met  in  the  town 
hall  or  in  their  guilds;  the  great  merchants,  who  now  live 
apart  in  suburban  villas,  lived  Avithin  the  walls  in  daily  inter- 
course with  their  fellow-citizens,  exercised  their  natural 
leadership,  sought  and  held  municipal  office.  A  city  now  has 
no  unity.  It  is  merely  a  densely  peopled  district  requiring  a 
special  administration.  There  is  no  mutual  intelligence;  a 
man  does  not  know  his  next-door  neighbour;  sometimes  in 
London  he  does  not  know  his  next-door  neighbour's  name. 
Conference  for  the  purpose  of  an  elective  choice  is  no  longer 
possible  in  great  cities.  Some  one  there  must  be,  then,  as  in 
the  case  of  a  political  constituency,  to  designate  the  candidates 
and  combine  the  votes.  Who  is  it  to  be?  The  answer  is,  the 
ward  politician,  who  designates  himself,  or  is  designated  by 
Tammany  as  the  candidate,  and  organises  the  constituency  or 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  123 

has  Tammany  to  organise  it  for  him.     He,  like  the  profes- 
sional politician  of  the  larger  sphere,  into  whom  in  fact  he  will 
presently  develop,  devotes  himself  to  the  calling  in  which  he 
finds  his  interest,  an  interest  too  often  like  that  which  was 
found    in    the    municipal   affairs    of   New   York  by  William 
Tweed.     He  has  his  organisation  always  on  foot.     If  in  an 
access   of   municipal   patriotism   you    attempt    to   oust   him, 
responding  to  the  cry  which   everlastingly  goes  up  for  the 
election  of  better  men,  you  find  yourself  an  amateur  opposed 
to  a  professional,  a  casual  interloper  contending  with  the  regu- 
lar master  of  the  field.     He  knows  all  about  the  constituency, 
especially  the  more  corruptible  or  gullible  part  of  it,  while  you 
know  nothing.     His  forces  are  always  on  foot.     Yours  have 
to  be  set  on  foot  with  infinite  trovible  and  no  small  cost.     It  is 
hardly  possible  even  to  start  a  movement  for  the  improvement 
of  elections.     The  great  merchants  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  municipal  reform ;  they  cannot  afford  to  leave  their  busi- 
ness, they  utterly  refuse  themselves  to  hold  the  ofiices,  they 
shrink   with  aversion  from  an  acrimonious   and  often  dirty 
struggle.     When  the  corruption  or  misgovernment  becomes 
insufferable,  as  it  did  at  New  York  in  the  time  of  Tweed,  there 
is  a  spasm  of  reform.     This  passes  away,  you  slide  back  into 
the  old  hands,  and  city  government  runs   once   more   in   its 
groove.     We  see  what  has  happened  in  Ncav  York,  where,  not 
many  years  after  the  exposure  and  overthrow  of  Tweed,  there 
were  scandals  of  the   same  kind,  though  in  magnitude  less 
portentous.     Men  of  the  class  of  ward  politicians,  if  they  are 
not  paid,  will  find  some  way  of  paying  themselves.     If  there 
is  not  speculation  there  will  be  jobbery.     Always  there  will  be 
waste  arising  from  want  of  skill,  foresight,  or  system,  and  from 
the  general  character  of  the  government,  which  is  political, 
when  for  municipalities   it  ought  to  be  scientific.     The  first 
object  of  aldermen  or  city  councillors  is  to  secure  tlieir  own 
re-election.     In  the  Middle  Ages  municipal  government  had 
to  do  with  franchises,  with  trade  rules,  with  the  defence  of 
city  liberties  against  royal  or  feudal  rapacity.     It  had  little 
or  nothing  to  do  with  sanitary  matters  or  education,  and  not 


124  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

much  to  do  with  police.  The  department  of  education,  if  it 
is  a  municipal  affair,  will  be  found  to  lapse  into  the  same 
hands  as  the  rest.  Hence  philosophic  observers  of  American 
institutions  tell  you,  and  every  one  on  the  continent  repeats, 
that  the  great  problem  is  city  government.  American  and 
Canadian  cities  are  well  governed  in  proportion  as  the  admin- 
istration is  not  elective,  but  has  by  the  good  sense  of  the 
people  been  made  over  to  skilled  officers  or  standing  commis- 
sions. The  best  governed  city  of  all  is  Washington,  which, 
being  in  a  Federal  district,  is  in  the  hands  of  three  com- 
missioners appointed,  like  other  Federal  officers,  by  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  with  the  consent  of  the  Senate. 
There  is  a  city  debt,  the  bequest  of  a  former  regime,  but  it 
is  being  reduced,  and  everybody  seems  satisfied  with  the 
administration;  indeed,  this  is  one  of  the  attractions  to  resi- 
dence at  Washington.  In  face  of  all  this  experience  and  of  the 
moral  to  which  it  points,  the  British  Parliament  bestows  on 
London,  in  the  quarters  of  which  there  is  no  unity  or  poAver 
of  collective  choice,  an  elective  government.  Already  the 
London  Council  seems  to  be  highly  demagogic,  and  likely 
to  repel  residence  as  much  as  Washington  attracts  it.  Already 
it  seems  to  be  a  paradise  of  municipal  agitators ;  the  city 
will  be  lucky  if  it  does  not  presently  become  a  paradise  of 
Tweeds.  Really  good  men  may  come  forward  and  be  elected 
at  first,  but  experience  seems  to  show  that  they  will  tire  and 
that  the  future  belongs  to  the  ward  politician. 

If  by  government  is  meant  anything  possessed  of  authority 
or  controlling  power.  Great  Britain  and  the  Empire  are  likely 
to  be  without  a  government.  This  is  a  case  in  which  the 
politician  most  averse  to  speculative  architecture  and  with 
least  in  him  of  Sieyes  must  admit  that  it  is  time  to  look  over 
the  building  and  see  what  repairs  it  needs.  If  the  late  Con- 
servative government  could  have  relied  upon  its  men,  this  is 
what  it  might  have  done.  But  the  task  was  renounced  when 
the  Prime  Minister  took  the  Foreign  Office,  and  instead  of 
giving  his  mind  to  political  reconstruction  gave  it  to  diplo- 
matic mysteries.     What  do  the  masses,  whose  votes  decide 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  125 

the  fate  of  an  empire,  care  for  diplomacy?  What  do  they 
care  even  for  limince?  The  chief  effect  of  Mr.  Goschen's 
brilliant  achievements  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  the 
mortal  struggle  which  followed,  was  probably  to  turn  against 
Mr.  Goschen's  cause  a  number  of  people  with  small  incomes, 
whose  dividends  he  had  reduced  by  his  conversion  of  the  funds. 

There  are  those  who  think  no  authority  necessary.  Anar- 
chists, of  course,  think  this,  though  it  may  be  presumed  that 
an  anarchist,  if  you  broke  his  head  or  stole  his  purse,  would, 
provisionally,  and  all  chimeras  reserved,  appeal  to  the  police. 
But  the  extreme  theory  of  popular  government  comes  pretty 
nearly  to  the  same  thing.  Its  practical  issue,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  the  government  of  the  caucus,  the  "boss,"  and  William 
Tweed;  its  tendency  is  to  chronic  revolution.  Let  govern- 
ment be  so  ordered,  if  possible,  that  our  increased  enlight- 
enment, our  advances  in  civilisation,  our  quickened  sense  of 
public  interests,  the  elevation  of  our  aims  and  hopes,  all,  in 
short,  that  makes  us  more  worthy  of  the  name  of  a  commu- 
nity than  were  nations  in  the  earlier  stage  of  evolution,  may 
tell  on  its  character;  withou.t  a  government  we  can  hardly  do. 
The  aim  of  the  moderate  Liberal  is  a  government  with  real 
authority,  national,  not  partisan,  raised  above  the  passions 
and  delusions  of  the  hour,  stable  enough  to  produce  confidence, 
yet  responsible  and  open  to  the  influence  of  opinion,  the  free 
expression  of  which  has  been  the  one  clear  gain  of  all  these 
revolutions.  Government  of  the  people,  Lincoln  said,  was 
never  to  perish  from  the  earth.  It  was  perishing  when  Lin- 
coln spoke,  and  the  government  of  the  Boss  was  taking  its 
place. 

What  is  this  "people, "the  worship  of  which  has  succeeded 
to  the  worship  of  kings,  and  is  too  often  not  less  abject  or 
subversive  of  public  virtue?  On  the  lips  of  demagogues  it 
means  the  "  masses  "  without  the  "  classes,"  that  is,  without  the 
education  and  intelligence.  In  the  minds  of  the  Jacobins  it 
was  a  deity :  they  called  it  the  divine  people.  In  the  minds 
of  most  of  us  it  is  a  vague  impersonation  of  the  community 
abstracted  from  individual  follies,  cupidities,  and  infirmities. 


126  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Nothing  answers  to  this  fancy.  Let  us  have  done  witli  fig- 
ments in  which  we  can  no  longer  afford  to  indulge.  Ignorance 
a  million  times  multiplied  does  not  make  knowledge,  nor  are 
politics  so  different  from  other  subjects  that  without  knowl- 
edge, and  under  the  influence  of  passion,  political  questions 
are  likely  to  be  settled  aright.  It  is  said  that  the  wisdom  of 
all  men  is  greater  than  the  wisdom  of  any  one  man.  No 
doubt  it  is  so  on  questions  which  all  men  understand. 

Few,  even  if  they  desire  it,  would  deem  it  possible  to  re- 
store hereditary  monarchy  as  a  political  power.  Things  serve 
their  purpose  and  have  their  day.  Hereditary  monarchy 
served  a  purpose  which  nothing  else  could  serve;  and  appar- 
ently it  has  had  its  day.  The  New  World,  the  leading  shoot 
and  the  index  of  tendency,  rejects  it.  In  Europe,  it  can  hardly 
be  said  to  live  otherwise  than  in  form  and  name  except  in 
Eussia  and  Germany,  in  which  last,  owing  to  the  circumstances 
of  federation,  the  part  played  therein  by  the  monarchy,  and 
the  military  character  of  the  Empire,  the  Emperor  retains 
power.  France,  formerly  its  grandest  seat,  has  to  all  appear- 
ances finally  abandoned  it.  In  Spain,  once  so  intensely 
loyal,  it  was  for  a  time  overthrown,  and  it  appears  now  to  be 
regarded  as  a  stop  gap  and  a  respite.  In  Great  Britain  it 
has  lost  all  power,  even  the  power  of  naming  its  own  house- 
hold, which  was  denied  it  by  the  loyal  Peel,  though  it  has 
not  lost  hold  on  sentiment,  particularly  in  the  rural  districts. 
Nobody  is  surprised  or  shocked  by  seeing  in  the  midst  of  a 
political  crisis  daily  accounts  of  the  doings  of  royalty  at  some 
health  resort  or  pleasure  resort  on  the  Continent.  A  man  of 
commanding  character  on  the  throne,  coming  forward  at  a 
juncture  like  the  present,  might  appeal  with  effect  to  the 
heart  of  a  nation.  But  there  is  no  use  in  looking  for  com- 
manding character  in  kings  at  the  present  da-y.  Kings  in 
the  Middle  Ages  had  to  exert  themselves  in  order  to  keep 
their  crowns  upon  their  heads,  and  were  trained  more  or 
less  in  the  school  of  practical  duty,  in  spite  of  which  they 
often  succumbed  to  the  temptations  of  a  court.     But  a  modern 


THE   rOLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  127 

king  is  nursed  in  luxury  and  flattery,  without  the  ancient 
correctives,  responsibility  and  need  of  exertion.  He  is  pro- 
tected by  an  invisible  fence  from  contact  with  rude  realities. 
Knowing  that  he  will  not  be  allowed  to  govern,  but  only  to 
hold  levees  and  lay  first  stones,  he  has  no  inducement  to  fit 
himself  for  government.  Public  duty  can  be  little  else  than 
a  name  to  him.  You  have  no  right  to  expect  of  him  more 
than  that  he  shall  be  a  respectable  and  harmless  sybarite,  and 
you  have  not  much  reason  to  complain  if  he  is  a  George  IV. 
Ask  a  minister  of  any  modern  court  how  often  he  has  found 
the  court  willing  to  sacrifice  its  personal  convenience  or  even 
its  fancies  to  the  public  service.  Think  how,  during  the  last 
two  centuries,  British  royalty  has  discharged  the  very  easy, 
gracious,  and  useful  duty  of  visiting  Ireland.  ISTot  one  in 
twenty,  or  perhaps  in  a  hundred  of  us,  will  work  hard  or  prac- 
tise self-denial  unless  he  is  compelled. 

The  House  of  Lords  is  now  the  only  hereditary  chamber 
left  in  Europe,  though  in  some  others  there  lingers  an  heredi- 
tary element.  It  is  the  last  leaf  on  that  tree,  and  it  has  hung 
so  long  because  its  power  has  been  so  small  and  its  Order, 
having  no  social  privileges  so  offensive  as  those  of  the  French 
Koblesse,  has,  compared  with  the  French  Noblesse,  given 
little  umbrage.  At  this  juncture  destiny  has  been  kind 
to  it.  It  has  the  honour  of  standing  between  the  nation 
and  dismemberment,  and  will  receive  the  present  support  of 
wise  friends  of  union,  however  they  may  deal  with  it  in  the 
future.  Nor  does  freedom  suffer  more  disparagement  from 
the  interposition  of  an  hereditary  Peerage  than  from  the 
uncontrolled  action  of  a  Parliamentary  dictator.  The  despot 
of  the  Closure  has  received  a  check.  Law  in  its  resistance 
to  lawless  violence  has  found  for  the  moment  a  bulwark  in 
the  House  of  Lords.  It  is  pleasant,  too,  Avhile  the  House  of 
Commons  is  cringing  to  the  caucus  and  its  idol,  to  see  some- 
thing like  independence  elsewhere.  Yet  few,  looking  at  the 
course  which  things  have  been  taking  in  Europe,  can  believe 
that  a  privileged  Order  is  destined  to  be  the  sheet  anchor  of 
the  State  in  the  future,  or  even  that  it  will  long  be  allowed  to 


128  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

exist.  What  has  been  said  of  hereditary  kingship  is  true  of 
an  hereditary  aristocracy.  It  is  not  an  object  of  rational 
hatred;  it  may  be  an  object  of  liistorical  gratitude.  It  was 
an  organising  force,  perhaps  the  sole  available  force  of  the 
kind,  at  a  time  when,  there  being  no  central  administration 
strong  enougli  to  hold  society  together,  the  only  mode  of 
preserving  order  was  territorial  delegation.  ISTor  could  any- 
thing else  well  have  curbed  the  lawless  aggrandisement  of 
kings.  In  those  days  the  Baron  was  local  ruler,  judge,  and 
captain.  His  life  was  one  of  exertion  and  of  peril.  Histo- 
rians even  think  that  the  lives  of  the  nobility  were  shortened 
by  their  troubles  as  well  as  by  the  sword.  But  there  is 
nothing  now  to  prevent  an  hereditary  Peer  from  sinking  into 
the  sybaritism,  to  which  wealth  and  assured  rank  tempt  him. 
Brought  up  in  a  school  of  honour  the  Peers  may  be ;  but  they 
are  also  brought  up  to  homage  which  they  have  not  earned; 
and  nobility,  instead  of  being  regarded  as  an  obligation,  is  apt 
to  be  regarded  as  an  exemption  from  duty.  Among  men  of 
pleasure  without  employment  scandals  are  sure  to  occur. 
They  have  not  been  very  numerous  in  the  case  of  the  British 
aristocracy,  but  they  all  tell.  The  Peers  cannot  be  got  even 
to  attend  in  their  own  House.  The  number  of  Peers  present 
at  important  debates  sometimes  hardly  equals  that  of  a 
dinner-party.  Their  wise  leaders  have  always  been  lecturing 
them  on  this  subject;  but  in  vain. 

Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  the  House  of  Lords,  besides  repre- 
senting a  privileged  Order  in  an  age  when  privilege  is  con- 
demned, represents  too  exclusively  a  special  interest,  that  of 
the  proprietors  of  land.  This  disqualifies  it  from  acting  as 
an  impartial  court  of  legislative  revision.  In  fact  it  has  never 
played  that  part,  but  always  the  part  of  an  organ  of  a  privi- 
leged Order  and  of  the  landed  interest,  opposing  every 
change.  It  has  opposed  not  only  political  change,  as  in  the 
case  of  its  blind  resistance  to  the  Reform  Bill,  but  such  changes 
as  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  the  humane  improvement  of  the 
criminal  law,  the  emancipation  of  the  press.  Boswell,  as  we 
know,  relied   upon    it   to   block   the   abolition    of   the    slave 


THE   rOLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  129 

trade.  There  is  no  use  in  blinking  the  fact  that  its  record 
will  not  bear  scrutiny.  Delay,  however  caused,  affords  time 
for  reconsideration;  in  no  other  sense  can  it  be  said  that  the 
House  of  Lords  has  given  expression  to  the  sober  second 
thought  of  the  nation.  It  cannot  claim  and  does  not  possess 
the  national  confidence  on  that  ground. 

Nor  is  it  the  decadence  of  the  hereditary  principle  alone 
which  is  shaking  the  foundation  of  the  House  of  Lords. 
Birth  by  itself  would  have  commanded  little  homage,  even  if 
the  pedigrees  had  been  longer  than  they  really  are.  The  solid 
basis  has  been  furnished  by  the  entailed  estates,  not  only  those 
held  by  the  Peers  themselves,  but  those  of  the  whole  landed 
aristocracy  and  gentry,  whom  the  House  of  Lords  heads  and 
represents.  But  the  rents  of  the  estates  are  falling,  apparently 
never  to  rise  again.  It  does  not  seem  that  wheat,  the  staple 
product  of  British  agriculture,  is  likely  to  be  henceforth  grown 
with  profit  in  competition  Avith  the  harvests  of  countries  vastly 
superior  in  area  and  comparatively  stable  in  climate.  Besides 
Russia  and  America,  Hindostan,  and  now  the  Argentine,  are 
pouring  their  wheat  into  the  market.  In  Hindostan  the  area 
is  said  to  be  capable  of  great  enlargement ;  better  implements 
will  increase  its  yield,  and  railway  extension  will  bring  it 
nearer  to  the  ports ;  while  its  cultivator  lives  on  so  little  that 
X)roduction  is  very  cheap.  Even  the  Canadian  Northwest,  vast 
and  immensely  fertile  as  it  is,  finds  itself,  in  face  of  such 
rivalry,  a  failure  as  a  speculation  in  wheat-growing,  though  it 
may  not  be  a  failure  as  a  home.  It  is  not  probable  that  the 
land  of  England  will  henceforth  be  able  to  bear  the  three 
orders,  squire,  tenant-farmer,  and  farm  labourer.  English 
estates,  moreover,  are,  many  of  them,  burdened  with  mortgages 
or  rent  charges  in  favour  of  dowagers  or  younger  children, 
which  remain  fixed  while  rents  fall.  A  great  economical 
change  brings,  as  usual,  political  and  social  changes  in  its  train. 
Family  mansions  are  being  deserted  by  owners  departing  to 
economise  where  their  penury  will  not  be  seen,  and  the  old 
order  of  rural  life  is  breaking  up.  The  manorial  system,  with 
all  its  good  and  evil,  with  all  its  beauty  and  deformity,  is 


130  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

passing  away;  while  social  and  political  hatred  is  working 
with  malignant  energy  to  precipitate  and  complete  its  ruin.  An 
impoverished  Peerage  with  no  great  body  of  landed  gentry 
behind  it,  will  scarcely  command  allegiance  or  form  a  firm 
barrier  against  the  rising  fury  of  the  democratic  tide. 

Is  the  House  of  Lords  to  be  ended  or  mended?  That  is  the 
great  practical  question  now  before  the  British  nation.  Revo- 
lutionists say,  end  the  House  of  Lords ;  the  opponents  of  revo- 
lution say,  mend  it,  and  let  it  save  the  country  from  the 
uncontrolled  sway  of  a  faction-stricken  and  caucus-ridden 
House  of  Commons  Avhicli  has  lost  the  character  of  a  delibera- 
tive assembly  or  national  council  and  become  the  mere  cock-pit 
of  party,  unable  even  to  preserve  order  and  decency  in  its 
debates.  The  House  of  Commons,  Radicals  assert,  repre- 
sents, or,  when  we  have  swept  away  the  last  safeguards,  will 
represent,  the  will  of  the  people.  It  represents  the  will  of  the 
people  distilled  through  the  sinister  alembic  of  the  caucus  and 
sophisticated  by  the  arts  of  Mr.  Schnadhorst  and  his  compeers. 
We  do  not  want  to  be  governed  by  anybody's  will,  but  by 
the  reason  of  the  community,  which  is  far  enough  from  being 
represented  by  the  existing  House  of  Commons. 

Mended,  and  effectively  mended,  if  revolution  is  to  be 
averted,  the  House  of  Lords  must  be.  It  must  be  mended  so 
as  to  make  it  once  more  what,  by  the  theory  of  the  constitu- 
tion it  is,  a  co-ordinate  branch  of  the  legislature,  a  real  check 
on  the  imprudence  and  violence  of  the  popular  House,  and  a 
worthy  rallying-point  for  the  rational  conservatism  of  the 
nation.  The  proposal  to  reduce  its  powers  to  a  suspensive 
veto  is  a  mockery.  The  suspensive  veto  would  soon  become  a 
mere  form  and  would  have  no  other  effect  than  that  of  some- 
Avhat  impairing  the  sense  of  responsibility  in  the  lower  House. 
What  man  of  mark  would  care  to  sit  in  a  House  which  had  no 
other  power?  A  nominative  Senate  is  condemned  by  experi- 
ence, notably  by  the  experience  of  Canada,  where  the  institu- 
tion is  an  unquestionable  failure  and  the  nominations  are  little 
better  than  an  addition  to  the  corruption  fund  in  the  hands 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  131 

of  a  party  government.  An  infusion  of  life  Peerage  is  a  feeble 
measure,  and  was  probably  brought  forward  by  Lord  Salisbury 
to  stave  off  a  more  drastic  reform.  The  life  element  would 
scarcely  fuse  with  the  hereditary  element,  and  as  often  as  the 
life  element  was  outvoted,  there  would  be  a  clamour  for  the 
abolition  of  hereditism,  the  principle  of  which  would  have  been 
morally  condemned  by  the  change.  In  these  times  it  seems  to 
be  only  on  an  elective  basis  that  an  institution  can  firmly  rest. 
Grreat  Britain  has  nothing  corresponding  to  the  States  of  the 
American  Union,  but  the  County  Councils  are  said  so  far  to 
have  Avorked  well  and  would  furnish  a  fair  elective  basis. 
The  importance  which  the  power  of  election  to  the  second 
chamber  would  give  them  might  in  some  degree  stay  the  flight 
of  the  squire,  encourage  him  to  hold  his  own  as  a  County 
Councillor,  and  thus  break  the  fall  of  the  manorial  system. 
To  the  representatives  of  the  Councils  might  be  added  a  certain 
number  of  members  appointed  as  having  held  high  offices  or 
commands,  for  professional  eminence,  or  for  signal  services  to 
the  State.  Eound  such  a  body  rational  conservatism  might 
surely  rally. 

When  the  plan  for  a  reorganised  second  chamber  has  been 
formed,  the  difiiculty  will  remain  of  carrying  it  through  the 
House  of  Commons,  where  the  revolutionists  will  wreck  it  if 
they  can.  Next  to  ending  the  second  chamber  altogether  they 
naturally  prefer  the  retention  of  the  present  House,  which  is 
practically  an  ostracism  of  rank  and  wealth.  The  flank  of 
their  opposition  might  be  turned  if  the  Lords  chose  to  reform 
themselves  by  a  resolution  delegating  active  powers  to  a  select 
body  of  their  own  number,  as  by  a  resolution  they  divested 
themselves  of  the  obnoxious  privilege  of  voting  by  proxy,  and 
as  the  lay  members  renounced  in  the  crucial  case  of  O'Connell, 
without  formal  resolution,  their  privilege  of  voting  on  legal 
appeals.  This,  liowever,  implies  an  amount  of  self-sacrifice 
on  the  part  of  the  majority  of  the  Order  which  it  would  be 
sanguine  to  expect. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  revolution- 
ists cannot,  otherwise  than  by  force,  abolish  the  House  of 


132  QUESTIONS  OF   THE   DAY. 

Lords  or  reduce  its  powers  without  its  own  consent.  To 
swamp  it  by  the  creation  of  four  or  five  hundred  Peers  would 
be  morally  an  act  not  of  legislation  but  of  civil  war.  Actual 
civil  war  Avould  then  impend.  An  attempt  of  the  House  of 
Commons  to  upset  the  constitution  and  engross  the  whole 
power  of  the  State  would  be  as  much  an  usurpation  as  the 
attempt  of  James  II. ;  and  in  the  last  resort  might  be  lawfully 
resisted  in  the  same  way. 

The  retention  of  the  bi-cameral  system  is  taken  for  granted. 
The  existence  of  that  system  is  an  accident  of  British  history, 
probably  arising  out  of  the  division  of  the  Barons  into  the 
greater,  who  took  their  seats  in  the  Great  Council,  and  the 
lesser  Barons,  who  did  not,  and  who  formed  a  landed  gentry 
which  cast  in  its  lot  with  the  Commons.  Chance,  however, 
often  chooses  well.  The  Aveakest  point  of  the  bi-cameral  system 
is  that,  to  form  the  Senate,  it  is  necessary  to  take  the  experi- 
ence and  the  mature  wisdom  out  of  the  popular  House,  which 
needs  their  control,  and  to  put  them  into  a  House  by  them- 
selves where  they  are  in  danger  of  being  discredited  as  the 
experience  and  wisdom  of  greybeards  who  are  behind  the  age, 
and  estranged  from  the  feelings  and  wishes  of  the  peoj)le; 
though  the  liability  to  estrangement  Avould  not  be  great  in  the 
case  of  a  second  chamber  elected  by  the  County  Councils. 
Again  there  is  danger  of  dead-lock.  In  the  United  States, 
where  the  Senate  is  really  co-ordinate  with  the  House  of 
Representatives,  as  often  as  the  majorities  of  the  two  Houses 
belong  to  different  parties,  dead-lock  ensues,  and  legislation 
on  important  matters  is  in  abeyance.  There  is  also  danger  of 
diminishing  the  sense  of  responsibility  in  the  loAver  House, 
members  of  which  will  give  a  popular  vote  for  a  measure  which 
they  disapprove,  trusting  that  the  measure  will  be  thrown  out 
by  the  Senate.  This  has  notoriously  happened  in  the  United 
States,  and  is  happening  now  in  England,  where  it  is  known 
that  not  a  few  of  those  who  voted  for  Mr.  Gladstone's  Home 
Rule  Bill  condemned  it  in  private,  and  would  scarcely  have 
been  able  to  stifle  conscience  had  they  not  felt  sure  that  the 
measure  would  be  thrown  out  by  the  House  of   Lords.     It 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  133 

would  be  easy,  without  a  second  cliamber,  to  provide  safeguards 
against  legislative  precipitancy  by  regulating  the  procedure, 
or  by  giving  a  suspensive  veto  to  a  certain  proportion  of  the 
House.  But  the  bi-cameral  system  is  in  possession.  It  is  in 
possession  not  only  of  all  the  constitutional  laws  and  forms, 
and  of  the  Palace  at  Westminster,  but  of  the  national  mind ; 
and  Lincoln's  advice  not  to  change  horses  when  crossing  the 
stream  has  double  force  when  the  stream  is  so  heady.  All 
objections  are  far  outweighed  by  the  pressing  necessity  of 
providing  a  sufficient  safeguard  against  legislative  violence  and 
revolution. 

It  is  not  the  House  of  Lords  only  that  needs  to  be  mended. 
Changes  are  not  less  needed  to  restore  the  independence  and 
dignity  of  the  House  of  Commons,  to  redeem  it  from  the  con- 
dition of  a  voting  machine  worked  by  the  caucus,  to  prevent  it 
from  becoming,  as  violent  men  try  to  make  it,  a  mere  organ 
of  revolution,  and  give  it  once  more  the  character  of  a  coun- 
cil of  the  nation.  The  only  guarantee  for  independence,  sav- 
ing with  heroic  souls,  is  a  certain  security  of  tenure.  Let  each 
member  hold  for  the  term  of  seven  years  certain,  or  whatever 
the  term  is  to  be,  from  the  day  of  his  election,  unless  he  takes 
office  under  the  Crown;  in  which  case,  perhaps,  a  sentiment 
rooted,  though  rather  obsolete,  would  still  require  him  to  go 
to  his  constituents  for  re-election.  It  would  be  found  that 
the  House,  to  which  many  men  are  elected  late  in  life, 
changed  fully  as  fast  as  national  opinion,  especially  if  the 
killing  length  of  the  sessions  and  the  killing  lateness  of  the 
hours  are  maintained.  But  it  would  always  have  in  it  a  cer- 
tain number  of  men  tolerably  free  to  vote  according  to  their 
convictions.  Its  existence  would  be  continuous,  and  there 
woiild  not  be,  as  there  now  is,  an  anomalous  interval  between 
dissolution  and  re-election,  when,  the  supreme  power  being 
now  vested  in  Parliament,  tliat  power  is  for  a  time  in  abey- 
ance. 

Such  a  change  would  involve  the  abandonment  of  the  pre- 
rogative, vested  nominally  in  the  Crown,  really  in  the  party 
leader,  of  penal  dissolution.     This  is  the  relic  of  a  time  when 


134  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

government  was  really  in  the  Crown  and  Parliament  was 
called  to  advise  the  Crown  and  grant  taxes.  It  became  irra- 
tional when  supreme  power  vested  in  Parliament.  Still  it 
used  to  be  exercised  with  some  measure  and  in  accordance 
with  some  princijple  lodged  in  the  breasts  of  hereditary  or 
trained  statesmen.  It  is  now  used  as  a  card  in  the  hands  of 
a  leader  of  faction,  who  dissolves  Parliament  to  bring  on  an 
election,  when  his  local  wire-pullers  tell  him  that  the  chances 
are  in  his  favour.  Thus  the  tenure  of  a  member  of  Parlia- 
ment is  not  for  a  legal  term,  but  during  the  pleasure  of  the 
leader  of  a  dominant  faction,  and  he  votes  always  under  peril 
of  dissolution  as  well  as  under  the  dictation  of  the  caucus. 
The  abuse  of  this  prerogative  in  the  colonies,  Avhere  politicians 
are  under  no  restraint  by  unwritten  principle  or  tradition, 
shows  what  may  be  expected  in  England.  On  the  last  occa- 
sion in  Canada,  the  Dominion  Parliament  was  dissolved  on  a 
false  pretext  which  was  exposed  upon  the  spot,  simj)ly  because 
the  party  leader  thought  that  the  wind  at  that  moment  was  in 
his  favour.  A  middle  course  would  be  to  leave  the  preroga- 
tive of  dissolution,  but  provide  that  it  shall  be  exercised  only 
on  the  advice  of  the  Privy  Council,  or  on  that  of  a  Senate. 
There  would  be  an  end  also  of  general  elections.  These, 
again,  are  a  survival,  and  in  surviving  have  totally  changed 
their  nature.  They  were  originally  a  summons  to  the  people 
to  send, up  representatives  of  their  counties  and  boroughs  to 
inform  the  Crown  about  local  needs,  and  vote  the  subsidies. 
Each  of  them  is  now  an  enormous  faction  fight,  the  prizes  of 
which  are  the  offices  of  State  aiid  the  control  of  the  national 
policy.  Each  of  them  is  a  civil  war  without  arms,  and  excites 
the  same  anti-social  and  anti-national  passions  which  civil 
war  itself  excites,  sometimes  with  results  hardly  less  grave. 
A  false  and  dangerous  stimulus  is  given  to  innovation,  be- 
cause each  of  the  parties,  especially  the  party  of  movement, 
has  to  allure  support  by  promises,  which  in  the  excitement  of 
the  game  become  reckless,  as  well  as  by  denunciation  of  its 
opponent.  The  jSTewcastle  programme,  drawn  up  to  gain  votes, 
raises   issues  which  together  would  be  enough  to   bring   on 


THE   rOLITICAL   CRISIS   IN   ENGLAND.  135 

revolution.  Legislation  itself  is  in  fact  fast  becoming  a  mode 
of  canvassing  for  the  next  general  election.  The  public 
time  is  wasted  by  the  introduction  of  measures  which,  it  is 
known,  cannot  pass,  for  the  sake  of  raising  a  storm  on  which 
the  party  may  ride  to  power  at  the  polls.  In  America,  civil 
war  ensued  upon  a  presidential  election,  which  corresponds 
to  a  general  election  in  England.  No  country  can  bear 
forever  these  convulsions,  which  grow  more  violent  as  the 
suffrage  is  extended,  and  more  frequent  as  the  exercise  of 
the  prerogative  of  dissolution  becomes  more  unrestrained. 

The  plebiscite,  where  it  can  be  used,  as  it  well  might  be  in 
the  case  of  any  amendment  to  the  constitution,  has  the  im- 
mense advantage  of  submitting  a  single  and  definite  question 
to  the  vote,  clear  of  all  alien  issues,  and  as  clear  as  possible 
of  personal  and  local  influence.  It  might  be  that  the  people 
would  decide  in  favour  of  woman  suffrage ;  but  they  could  not 
be  worried  or  coaxed  into  voting  for  it  as  individual  members 
of  a  legislature  are ;  nor  would  they,  like  party  leaders,  suc- 
cumb to  the  fear  of  offending  and  estranging  a  coming  vote. 

A  parliament  which  is  sovereign,  having  unlimited  power 
of  legislation  on  all  subjects,  has  over  a  parliament  bound  by 
a  written  constitution,  like  the  American  Congress,  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  greater  freedom  of  adaptation  and  national  devel- 
opment ;  though  it  would  not  be  necessary  to  copy  the  extreme 
rigidity  of  American  safeguards.  But  the  present  course  of 
events  in  England  seems  to  indicate  that  in  a  democratic 
republic  a  written  constitution  may  be  indispensable.  With- 
out it  there  may  be  a  perpetual  danger  of  a  revolutionary  ex- 
ercise of  the  legislative  power  by  any  ephemeral  faction  in  the 
moment  of  its  ascendancy.  For  something  of  the  kind  the 
radical  "  bugle  "  is  now  being  sounded,  and  if  this  prospect  is 
pleasant  for  political  sportsmen,  every  man  of  sense  must 
know  what  is  in  store  for  the  nation. 

To  reascend  the  slope  of  democratic  concession  under  the 
elective  system,  with  the  parties  bidding  against  each  other 
for  votes,  is  not  less  difficult  than  tlie  descent  is  easy.  To 
very   extended   male   suffrage  you   have   already   come.     To 


136  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

universal  male  suffrage,  with  one  man,  one  vote,  you  are 
visibly  coming.  To  universal  suffrage,  male  and  female,  you 
are  very  likely  to  come.  With  universal  suffrage,  male  and 
female,  and  without  a  written  constitution,  or  any  clieck  what- 
ever except  the  "throne,"  upon  the  exercise  of  sovereign  power 
by  the  "will"  of  such  a  "people,"  you  may  look  forward  to 
interesting  times.  In  the  end,  perhaps,  by  a  convulsive  effort 
of  society  to  escape  from  confusion,  the  truncheon  may  revert 
to  the  Protector's  hand.  But  in  the  meantime  what  may  hap- 
pen to  a  highly  commercial  nation,  most  sensitively  organised, 
to  which  a  moment  of  confusion  means  widespread  distress? 
It  is  surely  irrational  to  assert  that  any  man  has  a  right  to  a 
vote,  that  is,  to  a  share  of  political  power,  whether  he  is 
capable  or  whether  he  is  incapable  of  using  it  for  the  general 
good  and  his  own.  It  has  been  truly  said  that  if  such  a  right 
exists,  it  must  exist  in  every  human  being,  in  the  Hottentot  as 
well  as  in  the  civilised  man.  To  fix  a  standard  of  age  is  to  fix 
a  standard  of  fitness,  and  to  fix  a  standard  of  fitness  is  to  bar 
ignorance  and  irresponsibility  as  well  as  nonage.  The  right 
which  every  one  has  is  that  of  qualifying  himself  for  the 
exercise  of  political  power,  if  he  can.  Audiences  of  working- 
men,  however  democratic,  seemed  not  to  resent  the  assertion 
that  political  power  was  a  trust,  and  that  a  man  ought  to 
qualify  himself  and  give  some  guarantee  for  its  right  exer- 
cise. A  property  or  residence  qualification  as  assurance  of 
a  stake  in  the  country  may  be  obsolete,  or  no  longer  feasible, 
though  there  is  surely  still  some  sense  in  the  axiom  that 
representation  and  taxation  should  go  together,  while  the 
experience  of  American  and  of  Colonial  democracy  appears 
to  show  that  unless  representation  and  taxation  do  go  together, 
expenditure  is  likely  to  be  free.  But  property  qualification  as 
a  test  of  industry,  frugality,  and  responsibility  can  never  be 
obsolete  till  coinmunism  reigns  and  property  is  no  more.  Still 
less  can  it  be  said  by  any  one  but  a  Jacobin  that  an  educa- 
tional qualification  is  obsolete,  or  that  while  on  every  subject 
but  politics,  ignorance  is  fatal,  a  man  is  fit  to  decide  by  his 
vote  the  question  of  Home  Rule  who  hardly  knows  on  which 


THE   POLITICAL   CRISIS    IN   ENGLAND.  137 

side  of  England  Ireland  lies.  If  it  is  our  duty  to  educate  our 
masters,  it  is  the  duty  of  our  masters  to  get  themselves  edu- 
cated, and  to  give  proof  that  tliey  have  had  schooling  sufficient 
to  be  capable  of  understanding  at  least  what  the  political  ques- 
tions mean.  Xor  is  there  any  reason,  except  the  tyrannical 
exigencies  of  party,  why  the  suffrage  should  be  thrust  by  a 
self-acting  system  of  registration  upon  the  man  wlio  does  not 
care  enough  for  it  or  for  public  questions  to  take  the  trouble 
of  putting  himself  upon  the  Register.  An  educational  quali- 
fication, which  there  are  simple  methods  of  ascertaining,  and 
personal  application  for  the  vote  as  a  guarantee  for  a  spark  of 
civic  duty  are  surely  no  more  than  the  commonwealth  has  a 
right  to  require. 

After  all,  what  is  a  vote?  That  is  a  question  which 
socialistic  radicalism,  if  it  goes  to  the  length  of  dismember- 
ment and  rapine,  may  force  people  to  ask  themselves  in 
earnest.  Is  the  right  of  majorities  divine?  Are  people  bound 
in  conscience  to  allow  themselves  to  be  voted  to  perdition 
when  the  real  force  is  on  their  side  and  they  might  save  them- 
selves, if  they  chose,  by  the  strong  hand?  Nobody  pretends 
to  believe  that  a  majority  is  infallible,  or  even  that  it  is  a 
very  strong  guarantee  for  wisdom,  truth,  and  justice.  If  any 
one  did,  the  history  of  opinion  would  rise  up  in  judgment 
against  him.  By  agreeing  to  count  heads,  men  avoided  deci- 
sion by  force,  the  only  arbitrator  in  that  primitive  state  of 
things  of  which  the  Polish  liherum  veto  was  a  relic.  Counting 
heads  was  not  weighing  brains;  still  it  was  an  invaluable 
invention,  and  communities  owe  it,  if  not  invariable  wisdom, 
unbroken  peace,  freedom  at  least  from  physical  violence. 
Decision  by  count  of  lieads  is  an  institution  as  worthy  of 
profound  respect,  as  sacred,  if  you  will,  as  utility  can  make  it. 
But  utility  cannot  give  a  title  higher  than  itself,  and  if  in  nine 
hundred  and  ninety -nine  cases  out  of  a  thousand  it  is  right  for 
those  who  think  they  have  the  real  force  upon  their  side  to 
yield  for  the  sake  of  peace  and  order  to  the  more  numerous 
yet  weaker  party,  in  the  thousandth  case  it  may  not  be  right. 
A  vote  is,   in  a  great  number  of   cases,   an   artificial  power 


138  QUESTIONS   OF  THE    DAY. 

wliicli  strength  concedes  to  weakness,  and  which  places  weak- 
ness i)olitically  on  a  level  with  strength.  If  weakness  abuses 
the  artificial  power  beyond  a  certain  limit,  strength  would 
appear  to  be  morally  at  liberty  to  assert  itself.  People  are 
not  bound  to  fold  their  arms  in  tame  submission  when  they  can 
prevent  the  cruel  indulgence  of  class  hatred,  public  rapine,  or 
the  dismemberment  of  the  nation,  any  more  than  they  are 
bound  to  fold  their  arms  in  tame  submission  when  the  tyranny 
of  a  despot  becomes  insufferable.  There  are  international 
situations,  though  few,  out  of  which  the  only  exit  is  Avar. 
There  are  domestic  situations,  far  fewer  still,  out  of  which,  as 
Mirabeau  saw,  the  only  exit  is  civil  war,  or  the  display  of  a 
determination  to  face  civil  war  rather  than  suffer  the  extremity 
of  wrong.  A  majority,  conscious  that  its  power  is  artificial, 
and  that  the  real  strength  is  on  the  other  side,  will  almost 
always  decline  the  conflict  and  refrain  from  further  aggression. 
If  it  does  not,  the  national  destiny  at  all  events  will  be 
decided,  not  by  demagogic  appeals  to  passion  and  the  love  of 
plunder,  or  by  the  craft  of  Old  Parliamentary  Hands,  but  by 
the  genuine  force  and  manhood  of  the  nation. 


THE  EMPIRE. 


THE   EMPIRE. 

The  name  Empire  stirs  in  the  British  heart  a  sentiment  of 
pride  Avhich  the  writer  thoroughly  shares,  but  which,  unless  it 
is  kept  within  the  bounds  of  fact  and  policy,  may  be  the  pre- 
cursor of  a  fall.  When  the  House  of  Commons  has  passed  a 
bill  for  the  severance  of  the  British  Islands  from  each  other, 
to  discuss  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  remote  dej)end- 
encies  can  hardly  be  deemed  an  insult  to  the  national  honour. 

Freeman  did  us  a  service  in  making  us  think  what  we  meant 
by  "Empire."  The  vague  use  of  the  name  is  practically  delu- 
sive and  perilous.  British  Empire  in  India  is  Empire  in  the 
true  sense  of  the  term,  since  Hindostan  is  governed  with 
imperial  sway.  So,  in  their  way,  are  the  military  dependencies 
such  as  Malta  and  Gibraltar.  But  the  self -governed  colonies 
are  not  Empire  at  all.  The  reasons  for  retaining  the  three 
classes  of  possessions  are  totally  different,  as  are  the  rules  for 
dealing  with  them.  The  West  India  Islands,  again,  a  set  of 
extinct  slave  plantations,  are  a  case  by  themselves.  No  plan 
or  systematic  policy  has  governed  this  motley  accumulation  of 
possessions.  England  has  had  no  Will  of  Peter  the  Great.  The 
only  pervading  agency,  besides  the  aggressive  energy  of  a  high- 
strung  race,  fruitful  of  splendid  adventurers,  has  been  the  mari- 
time superiority  which  enabled  and  induced  England,  while  she 
had  not  the  means  of  putting  a  great  land  force  on  European  bat- 
tle-fields, to  extend  her  acquisitions  by  sea  at  the  expense  of 
less  maritime  rivals.  Cases  essentially  different,  common  sense 
requires  to  be  differently  treated,  and  as  to  ail  cases,  common 
sense  says  that  change  of  circumstance  ought  to  be  taken  into 
account.  But  in  approaching  the  question  of  Empire  from  a 
rational  point  of  view,  and  essaying  to  test  the  value  of  its 

141 


142  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

several  elements,  we  are  met  at  once  by  the  cry  of  "prestige." 
Give  up  anything,  we  are  told,  and.  you  ruin  the  prestige  of 
that  Empire  on  which  the  sun  never  sets.  What  is  prestige? 
Etymologically,  a  conjuring  trick.  Actually,  a  sham  force. 
Is  it  possible  that  there  can  be  anything  really  valuable  in  a 
sham?  Will  not  your  enemy  see  through  it  as  well  as  your- 
self? Wooden  guns  may  be  of  use  till  it  is  found  out  that 
they  are  wooden,  after  which  they  are  hardly  worth  defending. 
Dependencies  widely  scattered  and  which  you  have  no  adequate 
force  to  guard  must  be  military  weakness,  of  which  your 
enemy  cannot  fail  to  be  aware.  Your  enemy,  in  fact,  is  aware 
of  it,  and  acts  in  his  dealings  with  you  upon  the  knowledge 
that  you  are  vulnerable  in  all  parts  of  the  globe.  England 
deems  herself  the  happy  nation  that  has  no  frontier.  She  has 
a  frontier  in  India  of  vast  extent,  menaced,  as  is  supposed,  by 
the  greatest  military  power  in  the  world,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
neighbourhood,  on  the  other  side,  of  China,  which  may  some 
day  become  military.  In  Canada  she  has  a  frontier  of  three 
thousand  miles  perfectly  open  to  the  attack  of  a  nation  of 
sixty-five  millions,  which  the  other  day  had  a  million  of  men 
in  arms,  and  can  at  any  moment  throw  an  irresistible  for/3e 
across  the  line.  The  primacy  of  the  sea  remains  to  her. 
Supremacy  is  no  longer  hers,  as  it  was  at  the  time  when  the 
navies  of  France  and  Spain  had  fallen  into  decrepitude  and 
that  of  Eussia  was  but  just  born ;  or  again,  when  Duncan  had 
crushed  the  navy  of  Holland  at  Camperdown,  and  Nelson 
had  crushed  the  navies  of  France  and  Spain  at  Trafalgar. 
Steam,  too,  has  changed  the  aspect  of  naval  affairs.  Hoche 
would  now  be  sure  of  his  landing  in  Bantry  Bay.  Nor,  till 
the  fearful  experiment  of  a  naval  war  with  ironclads  has  been 
tried,  can  we  tell  how  far  the  pre-eminence  of  the  British 
sailor  will  be  affected  by  the  change  from  the  Victory  to  the 
turret  and  the  ram.  A  Frenchman,  though  inferior  to  a 
Briton  in  close  action  or  in  boarding,  may  behind  his  iron 
wall  show  as  much  intelligence  in  handling  a  machine. 

There  is  surely  no  disparagement  in  saying  that  England's 
real  strength  was  always  in  herself.     It  was  in  her  race  of 


THE   EMriRE.  US 

men,  her  position,  good  for  commerce  with  both  hemispheres, 
her  coal  and  iron,  the  spirit  of  lier  free  institutions.  Opponents 
of  territorial  aggrandisement  are  always  taxed  with  insularity. 
What  is  it  that  makes  British  policy  insular?  Cromwell's 
policy  was  not  insular,  nor  was  tliat  of  the  statesmen  of  Eliza- 
beth. What  compelled  England  to  stand  aloof,  lending  no 
help  but  protocols,  while  Italy  was  struggling  for  independence? 
What  would  compel  her  to  stand  aloof  if  Russia  and  France 
should  set  on  Germany  and  overturn  the  balance  of  power  in 
Europe  with  the  ultimate  humiliation  of  Great  Britain  herself 
in  view?  What  but  those  dispersed  possessions  which  she 
knows  herself  to  be  unable  to  defend.  When  the  advocate  of 
prudence  is  flou.ted  as  a  "  little  Englander  "  his  answer  is  that 
bulk  is  not  sinew  and  that  he  prefers  the  strong  man  to 
the  stuffed  giant. 

Thirty  years  ago  the  question  arose  of  ceding  the  Ionian 
Islands  to  Greece.  They  were  useless  to  England  as  posses- 
sions. Their  people,  though  well  treated,  were  fractious,  and 
were  always  giving  trouble.  Not  only  did  they  bring  no 
strength,  but  in  case  of  war  with  a  Mediterranean  Power, 
either  they  must  have  been  abandoned  with  disgrace,  or  a  force 
which  could  not  have  been  spared  must  have  been  shut  up  in 
them  and  would  probably  have  been  lost.  Yet  the  cry  was 
raised  at  once  that  cession  would  be  a  betrayal  of  weakness, 
and  would  be  fatal  to  imperial  prestige.  The  Islands  were 
ceded,  nevertheless,  and  by  Lord  Palmerston,  the  Minister  of 
aggrandisement,  whose  ambition  it  was  to  make  the  name  of 
Englishman  as  formidable  as  that  of  Eoman  had  been  of  old. 
Did  Great  Britain  thereby  lose  a  particle  of  real  strength  or  of 
genuine  reputation?  Did  she  not  rid  herself  of  weakness  and 
gain  reputation  for  wisdom?  Of  the  present  generation,  per- 
haps few  are  conscious  that  England  was  ever  possessed  of  the 
Ionian  Islands,  any  more  than  they  know  that  the  King  of 
England  was  once  King  of  Corsica,  and  for  good  reasons 
resigned  that  CroAvn. 

Spanish  liistorians  begin  the  reign  of  Philip  II.  with  the 
j'csouuding  roll  of  the  kingdoms,  provinces,  colonies,  and  for- 


144  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DxVY. 

tresses  of  which  he  was  lord  in  all  parts  of  the  globe.  "He 
possessed  in  Europe  the  kingdoms  of  Castile,  Aragon,  and 
Navarre,  those  of  Naples  and  Sicily,  Milan,  Sardinia,  Eous- 
sillon,  the  Balearic  Islands,  the  Low  Countries,  and  Franche 
Comte;  on  the  western  coast  of  Africa  he  held  the  Canaries, 
Cape  Verd,  Oran,  and  Tunis ;  in  Asia  he  held  the  Philippines 
and  a  part  of  the  Moluccas;  in  the  New  World  he  held  the 
immense  kingdoms  of  Mexico,  Peru,  and  Chili,  and  the  pro- 
vinces conquered  in  the  last  years  of  Charles  V.,  besides  Cuba, 
Hispaniola,  and  other  islands  and  possessions.  His  marriage 
with  the  Queen  of  England  had  placed  in  his  hands  the  power 
and  resources  of  that  kingdom.  So  that  it  might  well  be  said 
that  the  sun  never  set  in  the  dominions  of  the  King  of  Spain, 
and  that  at  the  least  movement  of  that  nation  the  whole  world 
trembled."  We  now  know  what  relation  all  these  possessions 
and  titles  bore  to  real  strength  and  to  the  sources  of  a  genuine 
prosperity.  How  does  the  refusal  to  examine  rationally  the 
Imperial  policy  of  Great  Britain  on  the  ground  that  you 
detract  from  her  prestige,  differ  from  the  blind  pride  that 
went  before  the  fall  of  Spain?  Suppose  some  bold  man  at  the 
Council  Board  of  Philip  II.  had  said  that  Spain  in  grasping 
the  globe  was  losing  Spain,  would  he  not  have  forfeited  his 
head?  Yet  would  not  his  voice  have  been  that  of  true  patri- 
otism and  real  greatness?  Spain  was  at  the  height  of  her 
"  prestige  "  when  Drake,  seeing  her  impotence,  went  into  Cadiz 
and  singed  the  Spaniard's  beard.  The  policy  of  real  strength 
must  be  the  patriotic  policy ;  the  policy  of  real  weakness,  how- 
ever colossal,  must  be  that  which  a  true  patriot  Avould  discard. 
This  will  not  be  a  mere  truism  till  it  is  accepted  as  the  truth. 

The  British  Empire  in  India  is  an  Empire  in  the  true  sense 
of  the  term,  and  the  noblest  the  world  has  seen,  though  the 
Ivoman  Empire  had  the  honour  of  being  the  mould  in  which 
modern  Europe  was  cast.  Never  had  there  been  such  an  at- 
tempt to  make  conquest  the  servant  of  civilisation.  About 
keeping  India  there  is  no  question.  England  lias  a  real  duty 
there,  she  has  undertaken  a  great  work  and  stands  pledged 


THE   EMPIRE.  145 

before  the  world  to  perform  it.  She  has  vast  interests  and 
investments.  Her  departure  would  consign  Hindostan  to  the 
sanguinary  and  plundering  anarchy  from  which  her  advent 
rescued  it.  The  Hindoo  and  the  Mahometan,  between  whom 
she  with  difficulty  keeps  the  peace,  would  again  grapple  in 
murderous  strife,  while  Mahrattas  and  Pindarees  would  recom- 
mence their  raids.  The  "cultivated  baboo,"  who,  owing  his 
being  to  the  Empire,  sometimes  rails  against  it,  would  be  the 
first  to  perish,  crushed  like  an  egg-shell  amidst  the  warring 
elements  which  its  withdrawal  would  let  loose. 

No  moral  compunction  need  be  felt  in  retaining  this  con- 
quest. It  is  a  monument  not  of  British  rapacity  but  of  British 
superiority,  especially  at  sea.  England  was  only  one  of  four 
competitors  for  the  prize.  Portugal  came  first,  but  she  was 
too  small  to  retain  so  distant  an  Empire,  and  at  the  critical 
moment  she  fell  into  the  paralysing  grasp  of  Spain.  Holland 
had,  as  has  been  remarked,  the  advantage  of  undivided  devotion 
to  the  aims  of  commerce,  while  England  was  divided  between 
those  of  commerce  and  those  of  territorial  aristocracy;  but 
she,  again,  was  too  small,  and  she  also  was  crippled  at  the 
critical  moment,  being  attacked  by  France,  who  thus  unwit- 
tingly played  the  game  of  England.  Prance  herself  was  the 
most  formidable  rival,  and  by  the  hand  of  Dupleix  she  had  all 
but  grasped  the  prize.  But  being  less  maritime  than  England, 
she  was  less  capable  of  securing  the  sea  base  essential  to  the 
tenure  of  an  Empire  formed,  unlike  preceding  Empires,  unless 
we  except  the  Carthaginian  and  Spanish,  by  extension  not 
from  a  territorial  centre,  but  from  a  sea  base.  The  navy  of 
France  once  overpowered,  her  access  by  sea  once  barred,  her 
military  force  was  useless.  Her  government  also  was  corrupt, 
was  swayed  by  harlots,  was  weak  yet  despotic,  and  meddled 
mischievously  with  the  French  East  India  Company  while  the 
British  East  India  Company  had  political  power  to  back  it  and 
a  comparatively  free  hand.^  The  British  had  also  the  great 
advantage  over  Catholic  powers  of  religious  toleration.  The 
Portuguese  brought  the  Inquisition  with  them  to  Goa  and  pro- 

1  See  Sir  Alfred  Lyall's  The  Bise  of  the  British  Dominion  in  India. 


146  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

claimed  a  war  of  extermination  against  paganism.  The  reli- 
gion of  the  Englishman  was  political.  If  he  persecuted.  Paj)ists 
or  Dissenters,  it  was  on  political  grounds.  He  was  willing, 
like  the  Roman,  to  respect  the  religions  or  superstitions  of 
other  races  so  long  as  they  did  not  rebel  against  his  rule.  He 
carried  this  so  far  as  to  own  Juggernaut  and  swear  by  the  sun, 
moon,  and  earth  to  the  observance  of  a  treaty.  Far  from  seek- 
ing to  convert  the  heathen  by  force,  he  looked,  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Empire,  with  little  complacency  even  on  voluntary 
conversion.  When  to  these  advantages  are  added  the  qualities 
of  the  race,  the  schooling  of  its  institutions,  and  the  appear- 
ance on  the  scene  of  such  men  as  Clive,  Hastings,  and  Welles- 
ley,  British  dominion  in  India  is  seen  to  be  no  accident. 

Still  less  can  the  Empire  be  said  to  be  the  fruit  of  a  settled 
policy  of  aggrandisement.  An  act  of  Parliament  in  1793 
declared  that  "  to  pursue  schemes  of  conquest  and  extension  of 
dominion  in  India  are  measures  repugnant  to  the  wish,  the 
honour,  and  the  policy  of  this  nation."  Both  on  the  part  of 
the  Government  and  on  that  of  the  Company  there  was  a  desire 
to  restrain  extension  and  keep  out  of  native  embroilments 
which  sometimes  went  the  length  of  pusillanimity  and  deser- 
tion of  allies.  The  pioneers  of  British  lordship  over  India 
were  Clive  and  Hastings.  But  the  idea  of  lordship  dates  only 
from  the  proconsulate  of  Wellesley,  who,  after  his  Imperial 
achievements,  wrote  to  his  chief  in  England  that  he  did  not 
know  whether  he  would  be  praised  or  hanged  for  what  he  had 
done.  The  invasion  of  Scinde  by  the  hot-headed  Napier  was 
an  aggression,  and  was  generally  condemned.  Against  the 
annexation  of  Oude  protests  were  raised,  but  it  was  justified 
by  the  necessity  of  putting  an  end  to  the  misgovernment  of  the 
native  dynasty,  which  became  insufferable,  and  the  responsi- 
bility for  which  rested  on  the  protecting  power.  With  these 
exceptions,  it  may  be  said  that  from  the  repulse  of  Surajah 
Dowlah's  attack  on  Calcutta  to  the  repulse  of  the  Sikh  inva- 
sion, which  was  totally  unprovoked,  British  empire  in  India 
has  been  acquired  by  defensive  war.  By  no  moderate  or 
timorous    counsels    could   the   march   of   destiny   be   stayed, 


THE   EMPIRE.  147 

Threatened  by  the  French  and  Dutch  as  well  as  by  the  anarchy 
around  it,  the  Company  could  not  help  taking  arms.  In  the 
cliaos  of  devastation,  plunder,  and  massacre  which  followed  the 
fall  of  the  Mogul  Empire,  a  power  at  once  of  force  and  of 
order  coidd  not  help  gaining  ground.  The  fragments  of  the 
shattered  structure  were  sure  to  gravitate  towards  the  only 
centre  of  reorganisation.  No  other  power  was  left  save  those 
of  the  Mahrattas,  not  rulers,  but  raiders,  with  the  fell  Pin- 
darees  in  their  train,  of  the  Sultans  of  Mysore,  mere  barbaric 
conquerors,  and  of  the  militant  sect  of  Sikhs  beyond  the  Sutlej, 
who  would  have  waged  against  the  Mahometans  a  war  of 
extermination.  Our  title  has  been  force,  but  it  has  not  been 
rapine,  which  was  the  title  of  the  chief  native  dynasties  and 
powers. 

No  national  feeling  has  been  trampled  on.  Hindostan  has 
never  been  a  nation.  It  is  a  vast  expanse  of  social  tissue  of 
which  the  cell  is  the  village  community,  while  the  pervading 
influences  are  religion  and  caste.  The  great  movements  have 
been  religious  and  not  political:  Buddhism,  which  asserted 
spiritual  equality  against  caste,  Vishnuism,  a  liberal  and 
philanthropic  reform  of  Hindooism,  and  Sikhism,  a  Hindoo 
schism  which  gave  birth  to  a  military  sect.  Government  had 
always  been  sheer  despotism.  For  centuries  it  had  been  the 
despotism  of  conquerors  who  swooped  from  the  mountains  of 
the  nortli  upon  the  languid  population  of  the  plains,  and  would 
probably  have  repeated  their  inroads  if  the  British  had  not 
come  upon  the  scene.  Conquest  might  also  have  resumed  its 
desolating  march  from  the  mountain  home  of  the  Mahratta, 
who  was  already  levying  his  blackmail  far  and  wide,  or  from 
the  table-land  of  Mysore.  The  Moguls  were  foreigners  as  well 
as  the  British.  Their  court  and  government  were  foreign,  they 
were  the  heads  of  a  dominant  race,  alien  to  the  Hindoo  in 
blood  and  religion,  and  sometimes  persecuting,  for  though 
Akbar  might  be  tolerant,  not  so  was  Anrungzebe.  Caste  itself 
was  probably  the  result  of  tlie  conquest  in  remote  antiquity 
by  an  Aryan  race  of  the  ])re-Aryan  races  whose  remains  are 
found  under  various  names  —  T>lu'c'ls,  Kols,  Sonds,  Meenas — ■ 


148  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

in  the  corners  and  crannies  of  Hindostan,  and  who  have  no 
connection  or  fellowship  with  either  Hindoo  or  Mahometan, 
while  the  British  have  brought  them  law,  humanity,  and  the 
rudiments  of  civilisation.  What  domination  can  be  more 
oppressive  than  caste?  What  insolence  of  the  haughtiest  of 
conquerors  can  match  the  self-exaltation  of  the  Brahmin  in 
the  sacred  books  of  the  Hindoos?  What  degradation  of  the 
most  despised  of  subject  races  can  match  the  degradation 
of  the  Sudra? 

Between  the  second  and  third  visits  of  Clive  to  India,  there 
was  a  period  of  scandalous  intrigue  and  corruption,  attended 
with  robbery  and  oppression  of  the  natives.  At  that  time 
the  Company's  servants,  being  very  poorly  paid,  were  tempted 
to  pay  themselves  by  foul  means,  while  the  political  power, 
which  by  force  of  circumstances  they  had  irregularly  acquired, 
being  yet  unrecognised,  was  not  coupled  with  responsibility. 
Clive  applied  the  sure  antidote  to  corruption  by  giving  good 
and  regular  pay.  He  coupled  responsibility  with  power  by 
obtaining  a  legal  grant  of  the  province  from  the  Emperor  at 
Delhi.  The  memorable  proconsulate  of  Warren  Hastings, 
though  beneficent,  and  felt  by  the  natives  to  be  beneficent  on 
the  whole,  as  well  as  marked  by  consummate  genius  for  govern- 
ment and  diplomacy,  was  not  untainted  by  contact  with  oriental 
statecraft,  or  by  the  financial  cravings  of  a  commercial  company 
for  gain  which  Hastings  was  compelled  to  satisfy.  But  the 
crimes  ascribed  to  Hastings  and  Impey  are  mainly  the  ravings 
of  Burke's  generous  but  riotous  fancy  set  at  work  by  the 
malignant  infusions  of  Philip  Francis.  Thanks  to  Sir  James 
Stephen,^  we  know  that  the  judicial  murder  of  Nuncomar  is 
a  fiction.  Thanks  to  Sir  John  Strachey,^  we  know  that  the 
Erohilla  charge  was  far  less  grave  than  it  was  believed  to  be ; 
that  the  Bohillas,  instead  of  being  an  agricultural  people  with 
a  tinge  of  poetry,  were  a  body  of  Afghan  freebooters,  with  no 
calling  but  that  of  arms,  who  had  imposed  their  yoke  on  the 

1  The  Story  of  Nuncomar  and  the  Impeachment  of  Sir  Elijah  Impey. 
By  Sir  James  Fitzjames  Stephen,  K.C.S.I.,  2  vols. 

-  Hastings  and  the  Bohilla  War.     By  Sir  John  Strachey,  G. C.S.I. 


THE   EMPIRE.  149 

Hindoo  population,  tliat  they  were  not  exterminated,  and  that 
Hastings  reproved  instead  of  countenancing  the  atrocities  of  liis 
native  ally.  It  is  scandalous  that  such  a  tissue  of  falsehoods 
as  Macaulay's  "Essay  on  Hastings"  should  be  still  in  every- 
body's hand,  should  be  read  in  India,  and  be  used  in  schools. 
That  he  flung  the  head  of  Hastings  to  his  enemies,  probably 
under  the  sinister  influence  of  Du.ndas,  is  one  of  the  worst 
blots  on  the  character  of  Pitt.  From  the  time  wlien  the  Com- 
pany ceased  to  be  commercial,  and  as  a  political  power  was 
brought  under  Imperial  control,  crime  and  corruption  ceased, 
though  from  ignorance  of  the  land  and  people,  blunders, 
notably  in  land  settlements  and  in  the  judicial  department, 
continued  to  be  made. 

The  conquest  of  India  was  no  accident,  yet  was  it  most 
marvellous.  The  native  armies  enormously  outnumbered  the 
British;  Plassey  was  avou  by  four  thousand  men  against  sixty 
thousand;  the  arms  were  equal;  the  natives  had  sometimes 
been  trained  by  European  officers;  the  British  soldier  had  to 
fight  and  march,  sometimes  to  make  forced  marches  in  pur- 
suit of  a  nimble  enemy^  beneath  the  Indian  sun,  without  the 
palliatives  which  he  has  now.  Most  Englishmen  still  know 
little  of  the  achievements  or  the  heroes.  They  have  heard  the 
names  of  Clive  and  Lake,  Wellington  and  Havelock,  but  not 
those  of  Pattinson  and  Pottinger.  That  story  remains  yet  to 
be  worthily  told.  The  grandest  scene  perhaps  is  the  last,  the 
struggle  with  the  Sikhs.  Nothing  can  appeal  to  the  imagina- 
tion more  than  the  night  of  Eerozeshah,  with  Lord  Hardin ge, 
who,  nobly  loyal  to  duty,  had  sunk  the  Governor-General  in 
the  soldier,  moving  over  the  field  to  brace  his  troops  for  the 
renewal  of  the  mortal  conflict  on  the  morrow.  A  striking 
part  of  the  history  is  the  devotion  of  the  Sepoys,  which  seems 
to  show  tliat  the  Englislnnan  is  not  so  utterly  incapable,  as  is 
supposed,  of  winning  the  liearts  of  other  races.  Sikhs  and 
Goorkhas,  received,  after  a  tough  conflict  with  them,  as  worthy 
brethren  in  arms,  bocame  the  most  faitliful  soldiers  of  the 
Empire,  and  hel})od  to  save  it  in  the  ]\Iutin3\ 

Great  have  been  the  feats  of  war;  fully  as  great  have  been 


150  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

the  feats  of  civilisation,  such  as  were  performed  among  the 
Bheels  by  Outram,  among  the  Mairs  by  Dixon,  among  tlie 
Klionds,  steeped  in  imman  sacrifice,  by  MacPlierson;  above 
all,  by  John  Lawrence  in  the  Punjaub.  The  devout  belief  of 
such  a  man  as  John  Lawrence  in  the  goodness  of  his  work, 
was  strong  proof  that  the  work  was  good.  He  could  hardly 
have  thoaght  as  he  did  that  the  Empire  was  upheld  and 
blessed  by  God,  if  it  had  been  a  kingdom  of  the  devil.  In 
Lawrence,  too,  and  in  his  compeers,  we  have  a  type  with  which 
the  world  can  hardly  afford  to  part,  of  the  piiblic  servant 
whose  character  has  been  formed  by  duty,  not  by  party  or 
quest  of  votes.  We  might  prize  the  Indian  civil  service,  if  it 
were  for  this  alone. 

To  the  conquered  the  Empire  has  given  peace,  peace  un- 
broken, saving  by  the  Mutiny,  for  forty  years,  under  which 
population  has  so  increased  that  the  Empire  is  in  some  dis- 
tricts oppressed  by  the  results  of  its  own  beneficence.  It  has 
given  vast  growth  to  trade.  It  has  given  railways,  canals, 
and  bridges,  the  fruits  of  a  public  expenditure  not  less  liberal 
than  that  of  the  Mogul  Emperors,  and  untithed  by  the  pride 
and  folly  which  built  a  mausoleum  over  a  tooth.  It  has 
given  facilities  of  distribution  which  mitigate  famine.  It 
has  given  education,  which,  if  not  widely  diffused,  is  diffused 
enough  to  open  the  leading  Hindoo  minds  to  western  civili- 
sation, and  of  a  stationary  to  make,  in  prospect  at  least,  a 
progressive  race.  It  has  given  medical  science  and  some 
notion  of  sanitary  reform.  It  has  given  redemption  from 
suttee,  human  sacrifice,  female  infanticide,  slavery;  the  hope 
of  redemption  from  infant  marriage,  if  philanthropy  Avill 
be  circumspect;  and  perhaps  the  hope  of  ultimate  redemp- 
tion from  caste,  which  seems  to  be  yielding  in  some  measure 
to  the  railway.  It  has  given  release  from  the  cruelty,  the 
corruption,  and  the  extortion  of  oriental  despotism.  It  has 
given  a  system  of  taxation  regular,  not  predatory,  and  moder- 
ate compared  with  tliat  of  the  Mogul  or  witli  the  Mahratta 
blackmail.  It  has  given  good  faith  as  the  rule  of  statesman- 
ship in  place  of  eastern  perfidy.     It  lias  given,  above  all,  in 


THE   EMPIRE.  151 

place  of  lawless  power,  law,  the  realm  of  which  advances 
\vith  the  British  flag,  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  race.  That  can- 
not be  an  Empire  of  mere  force  which  in  a  population  of  two 
hundred  and  eighty  millions  rests  on  a  British  army  of  seventy 
thousand  men.  Metternich,  who  said  that  you  could  do  any- 
thing with  bayonets  but  sit  upon  them,  would  hud  here  no 
exception  to  his  rule.  Of  the  civil  administration  it  may 
safely  be  said  that,  whether  it  is  the  cheapest  or  not,  the  most 
beneficent  or  not,  it  is  the  purest  in  the  world.  Its  purity  is 
secured  by  good  pay,  and  by  the  bracing  exigencies  of  a  service 
always  arduous  and  seldom  free  from  peril.  Since  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Empire  there  has  been  no  rising  against  Brit- 
ish rule  except  in  the  wake  of  mutiny. 

What  is  the  condition  of  the  Hindoo  peasant?  Some  re- 
formers say  that  he  is  the  most  miserable  of  mankind.  On 
the  other  hand.  Dr.  Birdwood,  a  high  authority,  says,  "for 
leagues  and  leagues  round  the  cities  of  Poona  and  Sattara 
there  stretch  the  cultivated  fields.  .  .  .  Glad  with  the  dawn, 
the  men  come  forth  to  their  work,  and  glad  in  their  work  they 
stand  all  through  the  noontide,  singing  at  the  well,  or  shout- 
ing as  they  reap  or  plough;  and  when  the  stillness  and  the 
dew  of  evening  fall  upon  the  land  like  the  blessing  and  the 
peace  of  God,  the  merry-hearted  men  gather  with  their  cattle, 
in  long  winding  lanes  to  their  villages  again.  .  .  .  Thus  day 
follows  day  and  the  year  is  crowned  with  gladness."  ^  In  some 
districts,  evidently,  the  check  of  war  being  removed,  popula- 
tion, in  sjuto  of  child-marriage  and  filth,  has  increased  too 
fast,  and  the  unwelcome  discovery  of  Malthus  is  once  more 
confirmed.  Everywhere  the  Hindoo  peasant  has  little.  In 
his  climate  he  can  do  with  little,  perhaps  hardly  cares  for 
more.  As  he  does  not  and  cannot  work  hard,  his  production 
cannot  be  large.  His  harvest,  whatever  it  is,  lie  reaps.  It  is 
not  reaped,  nor  is  he  butchered  or  tortured,  by  Mahrattas  or 
Findarees.  Nothing  can  be  taken  from  him  or  be  done  to 
liim  except  by  course  of  law. 

'  Imhistrial  Arts  of  India.  Quoted  by  Sir  R.  Temple  in  his  India  in 
J8S0,  p.  10r>. 


152  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Of  the  progress  of  Christianity  in  India,  it  is  difficult  to 
speak.  The  government  of  the  Company  feared  to  encourage 
the  missionary,  and  almost  disavowed  Christianity.  The 
Queen's  government  is  bolder.  It  has  discovered  that  the 
Brahmin  is  not  an  enemy  of  theological  discussion,  though  he 
is  jealously  tenacious  of  caste.  It  is  Christian  while  it  is 
strictly  tolerant.  John  Lawrence  was  emphatically  both.  It 
would  seem  that  some  impression  has  been  made  on  the  Hin- 
doos, on  the  Mahometans  none.  The  great  obstacle  to  the 
spread  of  Christianity  in  India  is  the  failure  of  belief  in  it 
at  home.  Strange  to  say,  the  West  is  now  receiving  a  faith 
from  the  East;  for  the  mind  of  philosophic  Europe,  perplexed 
with  theological  doubt,  seems  inclined  to  accept  something 
like  Buddhism  as  an  anodyne,  if  not  as  a  creed. 

It  is  said,  and  it  would  not  be  hard  to  believe,  that  the 
natives  prefer  native  rule  with  all  its  evils  to  that  of  the 
stranger.  One  answer  is  that,  if  they  did,  there  would  proba- 
bly be  more  migration  to  the  native  States,  which  still  cover 
nearly  half  a  million  of  square  miles,  with  a  population  of 
fifty-five  millions,  proving  by  their  existence  that  the  rapacity 
of  the  conqueror  is  not  boundless.  The  rulers  of  all  these 
trust,  and,  since  the  recognition  of  adoption  and  the  restora- 
tion of  Mysore  to  its  native  dynasty,  have  had  the  best  reason 
to  trust,  the  good  faith  of  the  Empire.  When  Russian  inva- 
sion threatens,  they  all  come  forward  with  offers  of  aid.  Their 
subjects  perhaps  may  have  some  reason  to  question  the  benefi- 
cence of  a  protectorate  which  guarantees  misgovernment,  till 
it  passes  all  bounds,  against  the  rough  eastern  remedy  of 
dynastic  revolution.  Still  the  average  may  be  an  improve- 
ment, since  eastern  misgovernment  did  not  seldom  pass  all 
bounds. 

The  press,  native  as  well  as  European,  is  free;  free  enough, 
at  all  events,  to  criticise  even  with  violence  the  acts  of  govern- 
ment. Lord  Hastings,  as  Governor-General,  declared  freedom 
of  publication  "the  natural  right  of  his  fellow-subjects,  to  be 
narrowed  only  by  urgent  cause  assigned,"  affirming  that  "it 
was  salutary  for  supreme  authority,  even  when  most  pure,  to 


THE   EMPIRE.  153 

look  to  the  control  of  public  opinion."  The  Hindoo  who  in 
an  American  periodical  denounces  the  tyranny  of  the  British 
in  India,  shows  by  that  very  act  and  by  the  freedom  of  his 
language  that  the  tyranny  is  not  extreme.^ 

We  must  not  gloss  over  the  hideous  Mutiny  or  its  still  more 
hideous  repression.  A  mutiny,  it  seems,  it  was,  and  nothing 
more,  having  its  sources  in  the  insolence  of  a  pampered  sol- 
diery, paucity  of  European  officers,  consequent  laxity  of  disci- 
pline, and,  at  last,  that  suspicion  of  an  assault  on  caste  which 
had  caused  the  Vellore  and  other  mutinies  before  it.  Its  hor- 
rors cancelled  many  a  glorious  page  of  the  history,  while  it 
added  such  pages  as  those  of  the  defence  of  Lucknow  and  the 
capture  of  the  vast  and  strongly  Availed  Delhi  by  an  army  of 
three  thousand  men.  The  fiendish  passions  of  a  dominant 
race,  rage  mingling  with  panic,  were  excited  to  the  highest 
pitch.     Lord  Elgin  was  there ;  in  his  diary  he  says : 

"  It  is  a  terrible  business,  liowever,  this  living  amongst  inferior  races. 
I  have  seldom  from  man  or  woman,  since  I  came  to  the  East,  heard  a 
sentence  which  was  reconcilable  with  the  hypothesis  that  Christianity 
had  ever  come  into  the  world.  Detestation,  contempt,  ferocity,  ven- 
geance, whether  Chinamen  or  Indians  be  the  object.  There  are  some 
three  or  four  hundred  servants  in  tliis  house.  When  one  first  passes  by 
tlu'ir  salaaming,  one  feels  a  little  awkward.  But  the  feeling  soon  wears 
off,  and  one  moves  among  them  with  perfect  indifference,  treating  them 
not  as  dogs,  because  in  that  case  one  would  whistle  to  them  and  pat  them, 
but  as  machines  with  which  one  can  have  no  communion  or  sympathy. 
Of  course,  those  who  can  speak  the  language  are  somewhat  more  en  rap- 
port with  the  natives,  but  very  slightly  so,  I  take  it.  When  the  passions 
of  fear  and  liatred  are  engrafted  on  this  indifference,  tlie  result  is  fright- 
ful ;  an  absolute  callousness  as  to  the  sufferings  of  the  objects  of  those 
passions,  which  must  be  witnessed  to  be  understood  and  believed." 

The  next  entry  is  : 

"...  tells  me  that  yesterday  at  dinner  the  fact  that  government  had 
removed  some  commissioners,  who,  not  content  with  hanging  all  the 
rebels  they  could  lay  their  hands  on,  had  been  insulting  tliem  by  destroy- 

^See  "English  Rule  in  India,"  by  Amrita  Lai  Roy,  in  the  Xnrth 
American  Eeview,  April,  1880. 


154  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

ing  their  caste,  telling  them  that  after  death  they  should  be  cast  to  the 
dogs  to  be  devoured,  etc.,  was  mentioned.  A  reverend  gentleman  could 
not  understand  the  conduct  of  government ;  could  not  see  that  there  was- 
any  impropriety  in  torturing  men's  souls  ;  seemed  to  think  that  a  good 
deal  might  be  said  in  favour  of  bodily  torture  as  well  !  These  are  your 
teachers,  0  Israel !  Imagine  what  the  pupils  become  under  such  lead- 
ing!" i 

But  tlie  terrorism  of  this  clergyman  and  his  compeers,  as  well 
as  that  of  sanguinary  sentimentalists  in  England,  were  in 
some  measure  redeemed  by  the  mixture  of  clemency  with  firm- 
ness in  Canning  and  Lord  Lawrence. 

Of  Lord  Elgin's  words,  part  was  true  only  of  the  period  of 
the  Mutiny;  part  remains  true.  British  dominion  in  India  is 
and  ever  must  be  that  of  the  stranger.  Between  the  ruling 
and  the  subject  race  a  great  gulf  is  fixed.  The  Moguls  came 
from  abroad,  but  they  made  India  their  home.  The  English- 
man, incapable  of  acclimatisation,  can  only  be  a  sojourner. 
He  is  more  so  than  ever,  since  he  is  no  longer  severed  by  a  six 
months'  voyage  from  his  own  country.  His  rule  is  feared, 
respected,  perhaps  regarded  with  gratitude;  but  it  can  never 
be  loved.  Nothing,  says  a  writer  on  India,  is  sooner  forgotten 
than  a  British  triumph,  or  longer  remembered  than  a  British 
reverse.  It  is  implied  that  what  the  people  remember  long- 
est is  that  which  pleased  them  most.  Association  in  govern- 
ment and  the  judiciary  has  probably  been  carried  nearly  as  far 
as  it  can  be  without  abdication.  There  it  must  stop.  .  Social 
fusion  there  appears  to  be  none.  It  would  be  barred  by  caste 
on  the  one  side,  as  well  as  by  pride  on  the  other.  Sir  Monier 
Williams  wondered  why  certain  Pandits  always  called  on  him 
very  early  in  the  morning.  He  found  that  they  wanted  time 
for  purification  after  contact  with  the  unclean.  Nor  can  it  be 
expected  that  the  demeanour  of  the  lower  members,  at  all 
events,  of  tlie  dominant  race  towards  the  subject  race  should 
be  free  from  haughtiness.  It  has  probably  not  improved  since 
the  personal  connection  of  the  European  Avith  India  has  been 

1  Letters  and  Journals  of  James,  Eighth  Earl   of  Elgin.     Edited  by 
Theodore  Walrond,  pp.  190,  200. 


THE   EMPIRE.  155 

loosened.  Officials  of  the  old  school  whose  time  had  been 
passed  in  India,  however  strong  their  prejudices,  never  spoke 
of  the  natives,  at  least  of  those  of  the  higher  class,  with  disre- 
spect. Nor  can  we  suppose  that  an  imported  civilisation  will 
equal  in  value  or  vitality  one  of  natural  growth.  Whatever 
there  was  of  peculiarly  native  excellence  could  hardl}^  fail  to 
suffer  in  the  process.  Manchester  goods  there  may  be  in 
plenty;  but  where  these  fill  the  market  there  will  no  longer 
be  the  products,  some  of  them  marvellous,  of  native  taste  and 
skill;  there  will  no  longer  be  the  joy  of  the  native  workman 
over  his  exquisite  work.  Buildings  there  may  be  of  utility, 
better  than  mosques  or  mausoleums;  but  there  will  be  no 
Pearl  Mosque  or  Taj  Mahal.  Perhaps  to  the  Oriental,  the 
pageantry  of  his  native  dynasty  made  up  in  some  measure  for 
oppression. 

The  process  of  lifting  a  race  not  more  than  half  civilised 
to  a  high  plane  of  civilisation,  is  costly  as  well  as  difficult. 
India,  though  gorgeous,  is  poor.  She  is  poor  because  the 
power  of  work  and  the  rate  of  production  are  low.  Yet  the 
administration  is  expected  to  come  up  to  the  standard  and  liil- 
fil  the  ideals  of  the  wealthiest  of  European  nations.  How 
can  it  dispense  with  the  salt  tax,  which  no  doubt  is  oppressive, 
or  with  the  opium  duty,  which  scandalises,  though  perhaps 
it  is  only  the  spirit  duty  of  Hindostan?  Pinance  apparently 
is  not  only  a  difficulty,  but  a  peril,  and  if  British  constituen- 
cies meddle  with  it,  it  will  be  a  greater  peril  still.  Hard,  too, 
it  must  be  to  infuse  the  western  spirit  of  justice  and  probity 
into  native  policemen  and  officials  of  the  low  class.  Home 
opinion  exacts  of  the  Indian  government  an  administration 
up  to  a  mark  liigher  than  has  been  reached  by  half  the  coun- 
tries of  Europe,  while  home  philanthropy  demands  of  it  the 
abandonment  of  its  revenue  from  opium. 

As  soon  as  the  Company  became  military  and  political,  it 
was  of  necessity  brought  under  the  control  of  the  Home  Gov- 
ernment. An  Empire  coiild  not  be  left  outside  the  Empire 
with  separate  powers  of  peace  and  war.  This  was  the  first 
step.     The  second  was  to  divest  the  Company  entirely  of  the 


156  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

commercial  character  which  vitiated  and  enfeebled  jDolitical 
action.  The  Mutiny  brought  the  end  of  the  Company's  rule. 
Tlie  army  on  which  its  authority  rested  had  gone  to  pieces, 
and  the  Empire  passed  to  the  Crown.  Yet  the  incorporation 
of  a  vast  and  despotic  Empire  with  a  free  commonwealth  was 
regarded  with  misgiving  both  by  some  who  feared  the  influence 
of  the  Empire  on  the  commonwealth,  and  by  some  who  feared 
the  influence  of  the  commonweath  on  the  Empire. 

The  Company  discouraged  the  settlement  of  Europeans  in 
India.  By  the  Queen's  government  it  is  encouraged.  Besides 
being  an  Empire,  India  is  now  a  considerable  British  colony, 
though  the  settlers  are  birds  of  passage.  It  wall  be  more 
clearly  seen  in  time  how  the  presence  of  a  European  commu- 
nity with  its  Magna  Charta  w^ill  consist  with  the  administra- 
tion of  an  empire  necessarily  autocratic.  Community  of 
danger  is  a  strong  curb  on  dissension,  yet  it  may  not  always 
prevail.  The  resistance  of  Indian  manufacturers  to  the  ex- 
emption of  British  cottons  from  import  duties  looks  like  the 
commercial  revolt  of  a  dependency. 

What  does  the  Indian  Empire  bring  to  Great  Britain?  Not 
tribute,  except  in  the  shape  of  the  pensions  and  savings  of  the 
civil  servants.  It  brings  a  large  trade,  though  no  monopoly, 
England  having  opened  the  ports  of  India  to  the  world.  Of 
military  force  it  brings  so  much  as  is  indicated  by  that  some- 
what theatrical  appearance  of  a  Sikh  corps  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean which  bespoke  lack  of  British  troops  rather  than  the 
availability  of  Sepoys  for  European  wars ;  and  by  the  employ- 
ment the  other  day  of  a  Sikh  corps  in  Egypt.  ISTo  one  sup- 
poses that  the  Sepoys  generally  could  be  used  on  western 
fields.  A  British  army  of  seventy  thousand  is  maintained  by 
India,  but  in  case  of  war  could  not  be  withdrawn.  The  mate- 
rial value  of  the  possession  is,  after  all,  secondary  to  its  moral 
value  as  a  field  of  achievement,  which,  though  the  days  of 
romantic  enterprise  as  well  as  those  of  fabulous  gains  are  over, 
is  still,  for  a  young  man  of  capacity  and  courage,  about  the 
finest  in  the  world.  The  competitive  system  has  thrown  it 
open  to  all,  not  without  some  risk,  perhaps,  to  the  nerve  and 


THE   EMPIKE.  157 

muscle  as  well  as  to  the  corporate  unity  of  the  service,  yet,  it 
seems,  with  good  results ;  so  at  least  thought  John  Lawrence. 
The  place  of  family  or  social  connection  as  a  bond  of  corporate 
unity  has  perhaps  been  supplied  by  partnership  in  responsi- 
bility and  possible  peril.  On  the  debit  side  of  the  material 
account  must  be  set  down  the  danger  and  difficulty  of  maintain- 
ing so  distant  a  possession  in  time  of  maritime  war;  the  enmity 
with  Russia  which  the  Crimean  war  entailed;  the  supposed 
necessity  of  occupying  Egypt  at  the  risk  of  embroilment  with 
France;  the  general  effect  of  this  vast  liability  on  British 
diplomacy,  and  on  the  influence  of  England  in  her  own  circle 
of  nations.  What  is  the  real  danger  on  the  side  of  Russia, 
apart  from  mere  mess-room  talk,  it  is  for  those  who  have 
read  the  genuine  Will  of  Peter  the  Great  to  say.  In  the  game 
of  Empire,  Russia  has  the  great  advantage  of  keeping  her  own 
counsels.  The  extension  of  her  Asiatic  dominions  has  been 
as  natural  as  the  extension  of  our  own;  and  there  seems  no 
reason  why,  each  Empire  having  reached  its  limit,  the  two 
should  not  rest  amicably  side  by  side.  From  subduing  and 
annexing  barbarous  tribes,  it  is  a  wide  step  to  invading  a  civi- 
lised power.  Our  fatal  expedition  to  Afghanistan  in  1840  is 
a  warning  against  rushing  to  meet  imaginary  danger.  Russia 
will  be  unfriendly  and  will  no  doubt  menace  the  Indian 
Empire  by  way  of  diversion  as  long  as  England  persists  in 
barring  her  way  to  an  open  sea.  But  why  should  England 
persist  in  barring  Russia's  way  to  an  open  sea?  Why  should 
Russia  be  more  dangerous  to  England  in  the  Mediterranean 
than  the  other  Mediterranean  powers?  Why  should  she  not 
rather,  if  England  can  keep  on  good  terms  with  her,  help  to 
balance  those  powers?  It  is  for  statesmen,  not  for  a  student, 
to  say. 

What  may  be  fermenting  in  the  dark  depths  of  the  Hindoo 
mind,  few,  it  seems,  pretend  to  tell.  At  times  there  is  a 
ruffling  of  the  surface  which  bespeaks  some  agitation  below. 
Yet  danger  of  a  serious  kind  from  internal  insurrection  there 
appears  to  be  none,  so  long  as  the  army  is  faithful  and  while 
tlie  people  remain  so  intersected  by  differences  of  race,  religion. 


158  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

and  language,  so  totally  disunited,  and  so  incapable  of 
organising  rebellion  as  they  are.  The  uniting  influence  of 
the  Emx)ire  itself  is,  perhaps,  so  far  as  things  on  the  spot  are 
concerned,  the  greatest,  though  a  very  remote  danger.  There 
is  now  no  dynasty  or  standard  jf  any  kind  round  which  in- 
surrection on  a  large  scale  could  rally,  and  the  government 
will  take  care  never  to  tread  on  caste;  if  it  is  left  alone,  it 
will  take  care  to  keep  rash  hands  off  the  Zenana.  The  Maho- 
metans, whom  we  thrust  from  power,  no  doubt  are  sullen ;  but 
they  are  a  minority ;  they  are  hated,  as  constant  broils  show, 
by  the  Hindoo  ;  and  sullenness  is  not  insurrection.  The  cloud 
of  Wahabee  fanaticism  seems  to  have  passed  away. 

A  greater  danger,  and  one  far  more  imminent  than  Russian 
invasion  or  Hindoo  insurrection,  is  British  democracy,  if  it 
meddles  with  Indian  government,  as  meddle  with  Indian  gov- 
ernment it  almost  certainly  will,  indeed  is  already  beginning 
to  do ;  while  Hindoo  politicians  are  joining  hands  with  it  by 
presenting  themselves  as  candidates  for  Radical  constituencies 
in  England.  The  shadow  cast  some  years  ago  by  demagogic 
Vice-Royalty  has  been  lingering  since.  That  a  dependent 
Empire  should  be  governed  on  demagogic  principles  is  im- 
possible, and  the  impossibility  cannot  fail  soon  to  appear.  A 
conquest,  however  clement  and  beneficent  the  conqueror,  is  a 
conquest,  and  if  it  is  to  be  held  at  all,  it  must  be  held  as  it 
was  won. 

"There  are,  of  course,"  says  Sir  Edwin  Arnold,  in  pleading 
for  the  retention  of  India,  "many  collateral  considerations 
which  ought  to  move  the  popular  mind ;  such  as  commercial 
benefit,  colonial  advantage,  and  national  prestige;  but  these 
are  weak  in  comparison  with  the  force  which  ought  to  be 
exercised  upon  tlie  general  imagination  by  the  sublime  duty 
laid  upon  Great  Britain,  if  ever  any  duty  was  sublime,  by  the 
visible  decree  of  Providence  itself."  The  clearest  of  the  in- 
ducements to  retain  India,  perhaps,  is  the  duty. 

Egypt,  occupied  by  Great  Britain,  may  be  regarded  as  an 
annex    to  India,  to  which  Egypt  controls,  or  is  thought  to 


THE    EMPIEE.  159 

control,  the  present  access.  As  a  possession  in  itself,  its 
value  is  partly  a  tradition  of  the  past,  like  that  of  Eome,  once 
the  capital  of  a  Mediterranean  empire  rather  than  of  Italy; 
that  of  Constantinople,  once  the  link  between  the  Empires  of 
the  East  and  West;  or  that  of  Cyprus,  once  in  a  peopled  angle 
of  those  waters.  In  the  infancy  of  agriculture,  the  mud  of 
the  ISTile,  which  produced  without  human  effort,  was  priceless. 
Egypt,  however,  like  Hindostan,  is  a  field  not  only  of  ambition 
or  profit,  but  of  beneficent  achievement.  Impartial  Ameri- 
cans have  borne  the  strongest  testimony  to  the  improvement 
made  by  British  rule  in  the  condition  of  the  Egyptian  people. 
For  the  first  time  since  the  Pharaohs,  the  Fellaheen  see  the 
face  of  Justice.  The  price  is  the  jealous  enmity  of  France, 
who,  for  some  mysterious  reason,  imagines  that  Egypt  is  hers. 

British  empire  has  been  won  by  the  great  adventurers  of 
whom  Clive  was  a  type.  Nor  is  the  breed  extinct.  Gordon 
was  a  specimen  of  it,  as  under  a  religious  guise  and  in  the 
missionary  sphere  was  Livingstone.  Unlike  the  Spanish 
adventurers,  who  conquered  and  wasted  Mexico  and  l*eru, 
these  men  are  organisers  and  pioneers  of  civilisation,  owing 
their  ascendancy  not  to  the  arquebus,  but  to  character  and 
mind.  There  may  be  fresh  fields  for  them  in  Africa,  and 
possibly,  when  the  Turkish  Empire  comes  to  its  end,  in  the 
provinces  now  subject  to  its  rule.  They  may  redeem  by  their 
exploits  in  distant  regions  the  reign  of  political  degeneracy 
which  seems  to  have  set  in  at  home.  But  they  will  do  well 
to  remember  Khartoum,  and  trust  to  themselves  alone. 

As  to  the  military  dependencies,  such  as  Malta  and  Gibral- 
tar, all  that  a  civilian  can  have  to  say  is  that  their  occupation 
and  retention  ought  surely  to  bo  regulated  by  sound  military 
reasons  and  not  by  empty  pride.  A  general  would  not  be 
thought  great  who  persisted  in  holding  a  useless  and  untena- 
ble post  because  he  had  once  occupied  it.  The  coaling  stations 
are  necessary  in  an  age  of  steam,  but  they  were  not  necessary 
before  the  age  of  steam,  and  it  would  be  folly  to  cling  to  them 


160  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

if  steam  were  superseded  by  some  new  motor.  Weakness  can 
never  be  shown  by  wisdom.  JSTor  can  the  memory  of  any 
glorious  exploit  be  cancelled  or  dimmed  by  abandonment  of 
the  spot  which  happened  to  be  its  scene.  We  are  not  the  less 
proud,  or  proud  with  less  reason,  of  the  defence  of  Torres 
Vedras  or  of  Hougoumont  because  the  lines  of  Torres  Vedras 
and  the  farm  of  Hougoumont  are  no  longer  in  our  hands. 
Nor  would  Eliott's  defence  of  Gibraltar  be  the  less  memorable 
or  the  less  inspiring  if  policy  had  led  the  British  government 
to  restore  Gibraltar  to  Spain. 

Is  it  the  policy  of  Great  Britain,  as  once  it  was,  to  domi- 
nate in  the  Mediterranean?     Is  such  a  policy  any  longer  pos- 
sible, since  the  growth  of  other  Mediterranean  navies,  French, 
Spanish,  and  Italian,  since  the  change  which  steam  has  made 
in  naval  warfare,  and  since  the  unification  of  French  power 
effected  by  the  railway  and  the  telegraph  between  Brest  and 
Toulon?     In  case  of  Avar  with  France  and  Russia  combined, 
would  there  be  naval  forces  disposable  for  command  of  the 
Mediterranean?     What  is  the  practical  object  of  this  policy? 
Is  it  safe  access  to  the  Suez  Canal?     Could  that  route  be  used 
in  time  of  Avar?     Would  not  international  laAV  close  the  Canal 
against  belligerents?     Would  not  the  Canal  itself  be  easily 
obstructed  by  an  enemy?     Could  convoy  be  afforded  for  trade 
through  the  Mediterranean?     Would  it  not  be  necessary  to 
resort  to  the  route  by  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope?     In  that  case, 
would  not  military  expenditure  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  be 
wiser?     If  Great  Britain  means  permanently  to  hold  Egypt, 
there  is  conclusive  reason  for  the  retention  of  her  rule  over 
the  Mediterranean.     But  does  she  intend  permanently  to  hold 
Egypt,  or  merely  to  accomplish   her   mission  of  reform  and 
then  depart?     The  other  day  British  commerce  raised  a  panic 
cry  for  an  increase  of  the  fleet.     One  who  laid  his  ear  to  the 
ground  might  have  heard  a  murmur,  not  from  unpatriotic  or 
peace-mongering  lips,  that  the  best  way  of  increasing  the  tieet 
for  the  protection  of  British  commerce  Avas  to  call  the  Medi- 
terranean squadron  home.     It  is  vain  to  suppose  that  England 
can  remain  for  ever  on  the  pinnacle  of  maritime  ascendancy  to 


THE   EMPIRE.  161 

wliicli  she  was  raised  by  the  destruction  of  all  the  other  fleets 
in  the  French  war. 

If  command  of  the  Mediterranean  is  to  be  retained,  no  ques- 
tion will  arise  about  the  retention  of  Malta.     Malta,  it  seems, 
with  the  requisite  works  and  with  a  sufficient  garrison,  is 
deemed   by  military   men    impregnable,    while  belonging   by 
nature  to  nobody,  geographically  or  ethnologically,  it  is  an 
uuinvidious  possession,  and  by  its  occupation  no  enmity  is 
incurred.     Far  different  is  the  case  of  Gibraltar,  the  price  of 
retaining   which    is    the    perpetual    enmity   of    Spain.      The 
parallel  of  a  Spanish  flag  flying  on  the  Isle  of  Portland  is 
hackneyed,  but  it  is  just.     Great  Britain  poured  out  blood  and 
money  to  rescue  Spain  from  Napoleon.     Yet  the  feeling  of  the 
Spaniards  now  is  better  towards  France  than  towards  Great 
Britain.     When  Cobden  expressed  to  a  Spanish   friend  his 
surprise  at  this,  the  Spaniard's  answer  was,  "We  have  got  rid 
of  the  French,  of  you  we  have  not  got  rid."     The  sight  of  a 
foreign  flag  on  his  fortress  can  hardly  be  made  more  agreeable 
to  the  Spaniard  by  the  recollection  that  England  took  Gibral- 
tar, not  in  international  war,  but  when  she  was  acting  as  the 
ally  of  her  candidate  for  the  Crown  of  Spain.     Again  and 
again  in  the  days  of  her  decrepitude,  Spain,  passionately  desir- 
ing to  recover  her  great  fortress,  dragged  her  half-paralysed 
limbs  to  the  attack.     Nothing  else  led  her  to  join  the  league 
against  Great  Britain  at  the  time  of  the  American  war;  for  the 
colonists  were  her  enemies  in  America,  and  she  was  as  far  as 
possible  from  seeking  their  aggrandisement  or  sympathising 
witli  their  republican  aspirations.     Gibraltar  alone  it  was  that 
sent  Spanish  ships  to  join  the  combined  armament  by  which 
the  British  fleet  was  chased  down  the  Channel.     Up  to  the 
last  and  greatest  of  the  three  sieges,  the  cession  of  Gibraltar 
as  a  post  more  dangerous  than  profitable  was  always  in  the 
thoughts  of  British  statesmen.     It  was  contem})lated  by  Stan- 
hope, by  Shelburne,  even  by  Chatham.     But  Eliott's  famous 
defence,  coming  as  it  <lid  with  Rodney's  victory  to  redeem  the 
humiliation  of  defeat  in  America,  gave  the  Rock  such  a  hold  on 
English  sentiment  that  thenceforth  those  who  talked  of  ceding 

M 


162  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

it  spoke  witli  a  halter  round  their  necks.  Shelburne  mooted 
the  question  in  negotiating  for  peace  with  America;  but  he  at 
once  drew  upon  him  the  denunciation  of  Fox,  who  on  that 
single  occasion  acted  the  part  of  patriot.  A  recital  of  Fox's 
arguments  and  those  of  Burke,  who  followed  in  the  same  strain, 
is  enough  to  show  how  circumstances  and  the  objects  of  policy 
have  changed.  "A  sagacious  ministry,"  said  Fox,  "would 
always  employ  Gibraltar  in  dividing  France  from  France,  Spain 
from  Spain,  and  the  one  nation  from  the  other."  This  posses- 
sion it  was,  according  to  Fox,  which  gave  us  respect  in  the 
eyes  of  nations,  and  the  means  of  obliging  them  by  protection. 
"  If  we  gave  it  up  to  Spain,  the  Mediterranean  would  become 
a  pool  which  they  could  navigate  at  their  pleasure  and  without 
control.  As  the  States  of  Europe  bordering  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean would  no  longer  look  to  England  for  the  free  navigation 
of  the  sea,  it  would  no  longer  be  in  her  power  to  be  useful,  and 
we  could  expect  no  alliances."  It  is  due  to  Fox  and  Burke  to 
remember  that  Gibraltar,  if  it  was  not  the  sole  title  of  England 
to  the  respect  of  nations,  or  her  only  hope  of  obtaining  allies, 
was  the  only  British  stronghold  in  the  Mediterranean,  Minorca 
having  been  lost,  and  Malta  being  not  yet  ours.  The  question 
was  again  mooted  thirty  years  ago,  when  the  change  in  the 
military  value  of  Gibraltar,  owing  to  steam  and  the  improve- 
ments of  artillery,  was  just  beginning  to  appear,  and  when  the 
cession  would  have  thoroughly  won  the  heart  of  Spain.  But 
discussion  was  still  branded  as  treason.  Now,  a  naval  writer 
in  the  Fortnightly  Review  proclaims  the  military  decadence  of 
the  fortress,  which  he  says  can  no  longer  shelter  a  fleet  lying 
under  it;  while  as  a  mere  post  by  itself  it  would  be  worthless, 
and  its  garrison  would  be  wasted,  since  it  does  not,  as  most 
Englishmen  fondly  believe,  command  the  strait.  Nor  does  it 
any  longer  retain  its  equivocal  value  as  a  dej)6t  of  contraband 
trade.  Apparently  it  does  nothing  which  is  not  better  done 
by  Malta  without  offence  to  anybody's  feelings  or  flag.  When 
it  comes  to  a  question  of  bargain  with  Spain,  we  have  to 
remember  that  during  tlie  last  quarter  of  a  century  the  j^ost 
has  been  losing  strength  and  value,  and  that  of  this  the  Span- 


THE  EMPIRE.  163 

iards  must  be  aware.  We  are  told  that  they  have  a  plan  of 
siege  ready,  and  are  confident  of  success.  An  exchange  for 
Ceuta  is  proposed  and  seems  natural.  But  Ceuta  would  be  of 
use,  like  Malta,  only  for  the  purpose  of  commanding  the 
Mediterranean.  Another  suggestion  is  that  Spain  should  cede 
to  England  the  Canaries  as  a  field  for  emigration.  That 
England  is  becoming  over-crowded,  and  needs  an  outlet  for 
population  fully  as  much  as  a  fortress,  is  too  certain.  But 
after  all  the  greatest  object,  not  merely  of  sentiment  but  of 
policy,  is  the  friendship  of  Spain,  who  is  now  taking  her  place 
again  among  the  nations. 

Heligoland  has  been  ceded  at  last.  The  retention  of  it  after 
the  fall  of  the  Napoleonic  Empire  and  the  Continental  System 
on  which  its  value  as  a  post  depended,  was  an  instance  of  the 
tendency  to  cling  to  everything  on  which  the  flag  has  once  been 
set  up,  however  useless  it  may  have  become.  Fortunately  the 
power  to  which  Heligoland  belonged  was  friendly,  or  cession 
might  have  been  attended  with  disgrace. 

Of  Cyprus,  the  flashy  acquisition  of  a  theatrical  policy  in  a 
dead  angle  of  the  Mediterranean,  the  chief  use  seems  to  be  to 
commit  England  more  deeply  to  enmity  with  Kussia  and  sup- 
port of  the  Turk,  whose  barbarous  sway  blights  what  were  once 
the  fairest  regions  of  the  earth.  A  force  could  hardly  be  spared 
to  hold  it  if  England  were  ever  fighting  for  her  life  with  great 
maritime  powers,  while  abandonment  would  be  humbling  and 
an  avowal  of  weakness. 

To  come  to  the  colonial  dependencies.  It  is  of  colonial 
dependencies  that  we  speak,  not  of  colonies,  the  value  of  which 
no  man  contests  any  more  than  the  necessity  of  migration. 
Greece  had  colonies  which  were  not  dependencies  and  were 
bound  to  the  mother  country  only  by  a  filial  tie.  England 
herself  was  a  colony  of  some  district  or  districts  of  North 
Germany,  though  she  was  not  under  the  German  Colonial 
Office.  The  founders  of  New  England  and  other  British  col- 
onies were  as  fit  for  inde]wndent  self-government  as  any  Greek, 
and  independent  they  would  have  been  from  tho  beginning,  had 


164  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

it  not  been  for  the  tAvin  superstitions :  Discovery,  which  made 
a  European  king  sovereign  over  every  shore  sighted  by  his 
subjects;  and  Personal  Allegiance,  which  made  the  emigrant 
indefeasibly  a  subject  of  the  realm  in  which  he  had  been  born. 
To  these  beliefs  is  traceable  the  relation  of  colonial  dependence 
with  its  natural  consequences,  incessant  friction,  rupture  Avlien 
the  colony  grew  strong,  and  the  American  Revolution.  Tiiere 
is  nothing  of  which  an  Englishman  has  more  reason  to  be  proud 
than  tlie  colonies ;  there  are  few  things  of  which  he  has  less 
reason  to  be  proud  than  the  Colonial  Office. 

To  the  colonial  dependencies  so  large  a  measure  of  self- 
government  has,  after  a  long  course  of  altercation,  ending  in 
Canada  with  a  rebellion,  been  conceded,  and  to  such  a  shadow 
has  the  supremacy  of  the  imperial  Kingdom  over  them  been 
reduced,  that  the  other  day  a  colonial  governor,  to  pay  a  com- 
pliment to  his  colony,  denied  that  it  was  a  dependency  at  all. 
But  a  community  which  receives  a  governor  from  an  imperial 
country,  whose  constitution  is  imposed  upon  it  by  the  Act  of 
an  Imperial  Parliament,  which  has  not  the  power  of  amending 
that  constitution,  which  has  not  the  power  of  peace  and  war, 
of  making  treaties,  or  of  supreme  justice,  play  witli  language 
as  you  will,  is  a  dependency.  It  has  and  can  have  no  place 
among  the  nations. 

Of  what  use,  then,  are  colonial  dependencies  now  to  the 
imperial  country?  This  is  a  distinct  and  reasonable  question 
apart  from  the  question  of  sentiment,  which  nobody  would 
wish  to  disregard.  Fiscally,  the  colonies  have  gone  out  of  the 
Empire.  They  have  asserted  and  have  freely  used  the  power 
of  levying  not  only  duties,  but  protective  duties,  on  British 
goods.  A  Canadian  politician,  who  poses  as  the  organ  of 
Canadian  loyalty  in  England,  in  Canada  receives  credit  as  the 
author  of  a  protective  duty  for  the  exclusion  of  British  iron. 
There  is  something  almost  humiliating  in  the  position  of  Great 
Britain,  bound  as  slie  is  to  protect  the  trade  of  colonies  which 
are  waging  a  tariff  war  against  her.  If  they  were  independent 
she  might  negotiate  commercial  treaties  with  them,  or  suppos- 
ing she  thought  fit  to  adopt  tliat  policy,  force  their  ports  open 


THE    EMPIRE.  165 

by  retaliation.  Eormerly  the  colonies  were  prized  for  the 
monopoly  of  their  trade  and  markets,  the  right  of  the  mother 
country  to  which  was,  as  we  know,  asserted  by  Cliatham  in 
emphatic  terms.  Trade,  we  are  still  told,  follows  the  flag. 
Trade  follows  profit  wherever  it  is  to  be  found.  Colonies, 
before  they  have  manufactures,  import  from  the  mother  country, 
not  because  she  is  their  mother,  but  because  she  makes  the 
articles  they  want.  How  can  trade  follow  the  flag  when  the 
flag  no  longer  makes  it  free?  When  colonists  propose  an 
imperial  zollverein,  the  answer  is,  that  the  colonial  trade  which 
the  zollverein  would  foster  is  small  compared  with  the  foreign 
and  Indian  trade  which  it  would  impair.  The  returns  show 
that  for  the  five  years  1886-90  England's  imports  from  foreign 
countries  averaged  77.1  per  cent,  of  her  total  imports,  whilst 
her  imports  from  the  colonies  including  India  averaged  22.9 
per  cent.  Her  exports  to  foreign  countries  amounted  to  70.5 
per  cent,  of  her  whole  export  trade,  and  her  exports  to  the 
colonies  to  29.5.  It  is  not  true,  as  often  alleged,  that  her  trade 
with  the  colonies  is  advancing  very  much  faster  than  her  trade 
with  foreign  countries.  For  the  five  years  185G-60  her  imports 
from  and  exports  to  foreign  countries  averaged  77.5  and  77.1 
per  cent,  respectively  of  her  total  import  and  export  trade;  and 
her  imports  from  and  exports  to  the  colonies  22.5  and  28.9 
respectively.  Nor,  in  spite  of  the  security  apparently  afforded 
by  imperial  jurisdiction,  does  British  capital  seem  to  find  a 
field  for  investment  more  in  the  colonies  than  in  foreign  coun- 
tries. Whether  investors  under  the  flag  are  exempt  from  loss, 
the  stockholders  of  Australian  banks,  and  of  Canadian  rail- 
ways, those  of  the  Chignecto  Ship  Railway  among  others,  can 
tell.  The  Chignecto  case  is  notable  because  political  connec- 
tion was  probably  part  of  the  inducement.  Had  Canada  not 
been  a  dependency,  all  the  millions  which  have  been  sunk  in 
the  Grand  Tnuik  might  have  remained  in  the  pockets  of 
British  investors. 

But  the  colonies,  we  are  told,  though  they  lay  protective 
duties  on  the  mother  country's  goods,  do  not  discriminate 
accainst  her.     That  there  was  to  be  no  discrimination  against 


IGG 


QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 


the  mother  country  was  the  cry  raised  by  Canadian  Protec- 
tionists when  they  wished  to  stave  off  Commercial  Union  with 
the  United  States.  Commercial  Union  would  have  done  Great 
Britain  no  harm.  It  would  have  added  to  the  value  of  her 
iI^GoO,000,000  of  investments  much  more  than  it  took  away  from 
the  amount  of  her  exports.  But  the  fact  seems  to  be  that 
Canada  does  discriminate  against  the  mother  country  in  favour 
of  the  United  States  by  her  tariff  as  a  whole,  if  not  on  specific 
articles,  to  the  amount  of  at  least  4  per  cent,  in  the  aggregate.-^ 

1  The  Toronto  Glohe  gives  a  table  compiled  from  the  official  returns, 
which  discloses  the  actual  ad  valorem  paid  in  1892,  in  cases  where  specific 
or  mixed  specific  and  ad  valorem  duties  are  imijosed.  It  appears  that 
specific  duties  are  aimed  at  cheap  goods,  to  which  the  protected  Canadian 
industries  are  most  hostile,  and,  British  goods  being  cheap,  they  suffer. 


Iron  rivets  or  bolts  from  Great  Britain  64 

Iron  rivets  or  bolts  from  United  States  42 

Sewing-  machines  from  Great  Britain. . .  40 

Sewing  machines  from  United  States. . .  33^ 

Nails  and  spikes,  average 40 

Eailway  fish  plates,  Great  Britain 41 

Eailway  fish  plates,  United  States 30i 

Rolled  iron  or  steel  angles,  Great  Britain  453 

Rolled  iron  or  steel  angles,  United  States  29J 

Iron  or  steel  screws,  Great  Britain 64 

Iron  or  steel  screws.  United  States ....  37 
Skates  from  Great  Britain  and  United 

States 48 

Skates  from  German)' 62 

Bar  iron  from  Great  Britain 38 J 

Bar  iron  from  United  States 275 

Boiler  iron  from  Great  Britain 41 

Boiler  iron  from  United  States 231 

Cast  iron  vessels  from  Great  Britain ....  82 

Cast  iron  vessels  from  United  States. ..  30 

Cast  iron  pipe  from  Great  Britain 52 

Cast  iron  pipe  from  United  States 43 J 

Cut  tacks  and  brads  from  Great  Britain  1385 

Cut  tacks  and  brads  from  United  States  89 
Cut  tacks  and  brads,  over  10  oz.  per  M, 

Great  Britain 43| 

Cut  tacks  and  brads,  over  16  oz.  per  M, 

United  States 301 

Wrought  iron  tubes,  Great  Britain  and 

United  States 50 

Wire  fencing(barbed)  from  Great  Britain  40 

Cuffs  from  Great  Britain 62  J 

Cuffs  from  United  States 4S5 

Cuffs  from  other  countries 69g 

Linen  shirts 41 


Wire  fencing(barbed)from  United  States  4S 
Wire  fencing  (Buckthorn)  from  United 

States 31 

Wire   fencing    (Buckthorn)   from   Ger- 
many    45 

Wrought  iron  or  steel  nuts,  bolts,  Great 

Britain 55 

Wrought  iron  or  steel  nuts,bolts,  United 

States 41 

Steel  ingots,  slabs,  etc..  Great  Britain..  39 

Steel  ingots,  slabs,  etc..  United  States  25 

Chopping  axes 33 

Picks,  sledges,  etc..  Great  Britain 86| 

Picks,  sledges,  etc.,  United  States 38 

Stereotype  plates,  average  rate 119 

Plated  cutlery  from  Great  Britain 50 J 

Plated  cutlery  from  United  States 43| 

Lead  pipe  from  Great  Britain 46 

Lead  pipe  from  United  States 23 

Lead  shot  from  Great  Britain 40 

Lead  shot  from  United  States 29 

Show  cases  from  Great  Britain 76 

Show  cases  from  United  States 52 

Cotton  shirts,  from  Great  Britain  (per 

cent.) 48 

Cotton  shirts  from  United  States 44 

Cotton  shirts  from  other  countries 41 

Cotton  stockings  from  Great  Britain ...  42 

Cotton  stockings  from  United  States..  41 

Cotton  stockings  from  other  countries  43 

Winceys  from  Great  Britain SSJ 

Clothsfrorn  United  States 28 

Cloths  from  Germany .32 

Coatings  from  Great  Britain 36 

Coatings  from  United  States 27 


THE   EMPIRE. 


167 


That  tlie  colonies  are  sources  of  military  strength,  or  could 
help  England  in  time  of  war,  few  would  maintain.  They  are 
always  being  exhorted  to  arm  themselves,  which  they  will  not 
do  effectively  so  long  as  they  feel  that  they  have  a  claim  upon 
Great  Britain  for  protection.  Australia  sent  a  regiment  to 
Suakim,  but  it  seems  she  will  not  do  the  like  again.  Canada 
distinctly  declined  to  follow  the  example,  Conservative  journals 
being  most  emphatic  in  protesting,  to  avert  suspicion,  that  there 
was  no  intention  of  the  kind.  She  sent  a  party  of  Voyageurs 
at  British  cost.  To  bid  her  arm  against  the  Americans  is  to 
bid  her  arm  against  a  community  with  which  she  is  in  a  state 
of  social  fusion,  in  which  half  her  people  have  sons,  brothers, 
or  cousins,  to  which  the  most  fervent  of  Canadian  Tories  does 
not  hesitate  to  transfer  himself  and  his  allegiance  when  interest 
calls.  Her  arming  against  France  would  be  vetoed  by  the 
French  Canadians  who  control  her  legislature,  and  whose 
hearts  would  be  on  the  French  side.     The  French  would  refuse 


Glass  bottles 38J 

Waterproof  clotliirif? 84 

2  and  3  pronged  forks 45J 

4  and  G  lu-onged  forks,  Great  liritain...  531 

4  and  fl  proufred  forks,  United  States. ..  52 

Hoes  from  Great  Britain 52 

Hoes  from  United  States 47 

Garden  rakes .  ■. 5O5 

Scythes  from  Great  Britain 49^ 

Scytlies  from  United  States 481 

S[)ades  and  shovels  from  Great  Britain  445 

Si)ades  and  shovels  from  United  States  42^ 

Axles  from  (Jreat  Britain 61 

Axles  from  United  States 44J 

Fire  ens'ines,  average 85 

Forginj^s  of  iron  and  steel.  Great  Britain  37 

Forf^intrsof  ironand  steel,  United  States  35 

Hooj)  or  band  iron  from  Great  Britain  . .  47 

Hoop  or  band  iron  from  United  States  28i 

Iron  in  slabs,  blooms,  etc..  Great  Britain  53 

Iron  in  slabs,  blooms,  etc.,  United  States  42 

Iron  bridfres  from  Great  Britain 42 

Iron  bridges  from  United  States 37 

Pig  and  scrap  iron,  Great  Britain 34 

Pig  and  scrap  iron,  U  nited  States 2(ij 

Blankets  from  Great  Britain 55 

Blankets  from  United  States 87 

Blankets  from  other  conntries 81 

Cashmeres  from  Great  Britain 84 

Cashmeres  from  United  States 26 

Cloths  from  Great  Britain 33 


Coatings  from  other  countries 29 

Meltons  from  Great  Britain 33 

Tweeds,  Great  Britain  and  United  States  32 

Felt  cloth  from  Great  Britain 30 

Felt  cloth  from  United  States 29 

Horse  collar  cloth,  Great  Britain 41 

Flannels  from  Great  Britain 34 

Flannels  from  United  States 31 

Woollen  socks  from  Great  Britain 89 

Woollen  socks  from  United  States 38 

Woollen  socks  from  Germany 41 

Knitting  yarn.  Great  Britain  and  United 

States 33 

Knitting  yarn  from  Germany 35 

Woollen  cloaks  from  Great  Britain 32 

Woollen  cloaks  from  United  States 29 

Coats,  vests,  etc.,  from  Great  Britain..  84 

Coats,  vests,  etc.,  from  United  States..  30 

Shirts,  drawers,  etc.,  from  Great  Britain  38 

Shirts,  drawers,  etc.,  from  United  States  32 

Horse  clothing,  shaped.  Great  Britain..  42 

Horse  clothing,  shaped,  United  States..  33 

All  other  clothing,  Great  Britain 32 

All  other  clothing.  United  States 29 

Woollen  carpets.  Great  Britain 37 

Woollen  carjiets.  United  States 38 

Woollen  carpets,  other  conntries 24 

Vinegar  from  Great  Britain 65 

Vinegar  from  United  States 67 

Vinegar  from  France 81 


1G8  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

to  pay  for  any  Britisli  armaments  whatever.  To  defend  the 
three  thousand  miles  of  open  frontier,  including  a  chain  of  great 
lakes,  the  colony  has  an  army  of  four  companies  of  regular 
infantry,  two  squadrons  of  regular  cavalry,  a  small  force  of 
artillery,  and  a  militia  numbering  about  38,000,  of  which  half 
is  drilled  for  a  fortnight  in  each  year.  That  Canada  will  not 
contribute  to  imperial  armaments  has  been  distinctly  admitted 
by  the  Canadian  High  Commissioner,  who  says  that  she  has 
done  enough,  he  means  apparently  for  all  time,  in  constructing 
the  Pacific  Railway,  deepening  the  canals,  and  suppressing 
the  Kiel  rebellion.  Upon  hearing  this  the  Imperial  Federa- 
tion League  in  England  broke  up.  By  her  friendly  voice  in 
the  councils  of  her  own  continent  Canada  might  greatly  help 
her  mother  country.  She  is  not  likely  to  help  her  in  any  other 
way. 

A  grand  scheme  is  on  foot  for  making  Canada  the  link 
between  Great  Britain  and  Australia  by  a  line  of  communica- 
tions carried  over  Canadian  territory,  where  it  will  be  secure, 
as  the  projectors  suppose,  in  time  of  war.  Whatever  line  is 
made  will,  through  almost  its  entire  length,  be  within  easy 
grasp  of  the  Americans,  and  will  be  liable  to  be  broken  by  any 
enemy  who  can  apply  dynamite  to  a  bridge  or  cut  a  telegraph 
wire  in  the  deserts  or  mountain  regions  through  •  which  it 
will  run.  That  the  highway  of  the  world's  commerce  can  be 
made  permanently  to  traverse  the  wintry  wilds  of  the  sub- 
Arctic  region  seems  unlikely,  whatever  lavish  expenditure  may 
effect  for  a  time. 

Emigration  returns  which  show  152,000  emigrants  to  the 
United  States  against  27,000  to  the  North  American  colonies 
are  a  conclusive  answer  to  any  allegation  that  the  colonial 
independencies  are  necessary  as  new  homes.  The  political 
connection  may  sometimes  misdirect  emigration,  as  those  who 
have  seen  the  Skye  Crofter  settlements  in  Manitoba  will  be 
inclined  to  suspect.  There  are  now  nearly  a  million  of 
Canadians  in  the  United  States.  The  object  of  the  emigrant 
in  leaving  his  home  is  to  better  his  condition,  and  he  goes 
where  this  will  most  surely  be  done.     If  he  feels  any  other 


THE   EMPIRE.  169 

attraction,  it  is  to  the  place  whither  his  friends  and  relatives 
have  gone  before  him. 

Some  appear  to  suppose  that  the  political  influence  of  the 
colonies,  especially  Canada,  on  the  mother  country  is  likely  to 
be  of  great  value.  It  would  surely  be  pretty  much  the  same 
even  if  they  were  independent.  The  progress  of  the  mother 
country  in  democracy  hardly  needs  any  impulse  from  without. 
Australia  contributes  to  British  strikes,  and  Canadian  legisla- 
tures, under  the  auspices  of  a  Ministry  styled  Conservative,  to 
gain  the  Irish  vote  passed  resolutions  in  favour  of  Home  Rule, 
that  is  of  the  dismemberment  of  the  British  Empire. 

To  the  colony,  what  is  the  use  of  dependence?  Does  it 
really  give  military  protection?  Could  Great  Britain,  in  case 
of  war  with  a  maritime  power,  afford  fleets  and  armies  for  her 
distant  possessions?  From  Canada,  we  are  told  plainly,  she 
would  have  at  once  to  withdraw.  It  would  be  a  death-trap  to 
her  arms  and  to  her  honour.  So  thought  Lord  Sherbrooke, 
who  says  that  Lord  Palmerston  agreed  with  him;  and  it  is 
understood  that  the  War  Office  is  of  much  the  same  mind.  Yet 
protection  may  fairly  be  demanded,  since  it  is  through  the 
connection  with  Great  Britain,  and  the  liability  to  be  involved 
as  dependencies  in  her  quarrels,  that  the  colonies  are  in  danger 
of  attack.  Australia  and  Canada  the  other  day  might  have 
been  involved  in  a  war  between  Great  Britain  and  France  about 
Siam.  They  may  any  day  be  involved  in  a  quarrel  about 
Afghanistan,  Egypt,  or  some  African  territory  in  wdiich  they 
have  not  the  remotest  interest.  Their  trade  may  be  cut  up, 
possibly  they  may  be  exposed  to  invasion,  which,  as  even  the 
best  militia  never  stand  against  regulars,  they  could  hardly 
meet.  The  sole  danger  of  Canada  arises  from  the  connec- 
tion. Since  the  extinction  of  slavery  the  people  of  the  United 
States  have  had  no  thought  of  territorial  aggrandisement;  they 
have  shrunk  even  from  natural  extension.  Canada,  were  she 
independent,  might  sleep  in  perfect  safety  "under  the  gigantic 
shadow  of  her  rapacious  neighbour."  Kobody  can  doubt  this 
who  knows  tlie  American  ])eo])lo.  "While  Canada  is  exposed 
to  danger  by  the  connection,   Great  I'ritiin  hardly  dares  to 


170  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

stand  erect  when  she  deals  with  the  American  Eepublic,  because 
her  North  American  dependencies  are  a  pledge  in  the  adver- 
sary's hands.  In  almost  all  negotiations  the  impotence  of 
Great  Britain  on  the  American  continent  has  been  felt.  In 
each  dispute  about  boundaries,  Canada  has  been  obliged  to  give 
way.  She  has  complained,  but  what  else  could  she  expect? 
British  diplomacy  has  done  its  best,  but  diplomacy  is  little 
without  cannon. 

Commercially  the  colonies  may  be  thought  to  have  an 
advantage  in  a  special  facility  of  borrowing,  though  Spain, 
Turkey,  Mexico,  the  Argentine  Republic,  have  been  able  to 
borrow  from  England  on  a  liberal  scale.  But  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  facility  of  borrowing,  if  it  is  apparently  a 
blessing,  is  not  really  a  curse  in  disguise. 

Is  any  political  advantage  derived  by  the  colonies  from 
dependence?  Is  it  possible  that  a  salutary  tutelage  should  be 
exercised  by  a  democracy  in  Europe  over  a  democracy  in 
America  or  at  the  antipodes,  its  equal  in  intelligence,  its  equal 
in  power  of  self-government,  and  placed  in  circumstances 
widely  different?  The  idea  is  ludicrous.  What  does  one 
Englishman  in  ten  thousand  know  or  care  about  Australian  or 
Canadian  affairs?  What  does  Parliament  know  or  care  about 
them?  Does  not  a  colonial  question  clear  the  House?  The 
Constitution  imposed  by  Parliament  on  Canada  twenty  years 
ago  has  disclosed  serious  defects.  The  Senate,  especially,  has 
proved  a  dead  failure  or  worse.  Yet  the  Constitution  is 
practically  riveted  on  the  colony  because  Parliament  could 
never  be  got  to  attend  to  amendments.  Thus  the  political 
development  of  the  young  nation,  instead  of  being  aided  by 
the  tutelage,  is  impeded  in  the  most  important  respect.  All 
the  machinery  of  British  Parliamentary  government  the  colo- 
nies in  common  with  many  independent  nations  have.  The 
spirit  of  British  statesmanship  you  cannot  impart,  unless  you 
send  out  British  statesmen  instinct  with  it  in  virtue  of  their 
peculiar  training  and  traditions.  The  game  of  colonial  faction 
will  not  give  birth  to  it;  perhaps  its  life  may  not  be  long  in 
the  mother  country  herself.     Whether  the  standard  of  politi- 


THE   EMPIRE.  171 

cal  morality  in  a  colony  is  raised  by  the  connection,  Canadian 
scandals  have  too  clearly  shown,  though  the  governnaent  liaving 
barred  the  door  against  inquiry,  only  a  part,  probably,  of  the 
truth  has  come  to  light.  Any  one  of  those  disclosures  would 
have  ruined  an  aspirant  to  high  political  place  in  the  United 
States.  Mr.  Blake  complains  of  "lowered  standards  of  public 
virtue,  deathlike  apathy  of  public  opinion,  debauched  con- 
stituencies, and  increased  dependence  on  the  public  chest." 
Government  has  been  unblushingly  corrupt.  Subsidies  to 
railways  and  local  works  have  been  notoriously  used  for  the 
purpose  of  influencing  elections.  No  President  of  the  United 
States,  as  a  candidate  for  re-election,  would  have  dared  to 
assemble  the  protected  manufacturers  in  the  parlour  of  a 
hotel,  assess  them  to  his  election  fund,  and  pledge  to  them  the 
fiscal  policy  of  the  country. 

A  Governor  is  now  politically  a  cipher.  He  holds  a  petty 
court,  and  bids  champagne  flow  under  his  roof,  receives  civic 
addresses,  and  makes  flattering  replies;  but  he  has  lost  all 
power,  not  only  of  initiation,  but  of  salutary  control.  His 
name  serves  only  to  cloak  and  dignify  the  acts  of  colonial 
politicians.  It  makes  the  people  put  up  with  things  against 
which  public  self-respect  even  at  a  low  ebb  might  revolt. 
Parliament  in  Canada  was  dissolved  the  other  day  for  the 
convenience  of  the  Minister,  who  wanted  to  snap  a  verdict, 
on  the  pretence  that  a  popular  mandate  was  required  for 
negotiations  respecting  the  tariff  Avhich  were  on  foot  with  the 
government  of  the  United  States.  The  pretence  was  false, 
and  the  falsehood  was  at  once  exposed  by  the  American  Secre- 
tary of  State,  who  declared  that  no  negotiations  whatever  Avere 
on  foot.  In  the  fraud  thus  practised  on  the  peojde,  the 
representative  of  the  Crown,  who  can  hardly  have  failed  to 
know  the  truth,  was  constrained  constitutionally  to  bear  a  part. 
In  the  noted  case  of  the  Pacific  llailway  scandal,  wliile  public 
morality  was  struggling,  perhaps  for  the  last  time,  with  cor- 
ruption, the  weight  of  the  Governor-General's  authority  was 
actually  cast  into  the  wrong  scale.  By  the  advice  of  the 
accused  Ministers,  which  he  deemed  it  his  constitutional  duty 


172  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

to  take,  he  transferred  the  inquiry  from  Parliament,  which 
was  seised  of  it,  to  a  Royal  Commission  appointed  by  the 
Ministers  themselves,  whose  object  manifestly  was  to  evade 
justice,  as  they  would  probably  have  succeeded  in  doing  had 
not  public  indignation  been  too  strong. 

Nor  does  the  political  connection  form  anything  in  the  way 
of  social  character  which  a  man  of  sense  would  value,  or  from 
which  a  man  of  sense  would  not  turn  away.  There  is  no  need 
of  using  harsh  words  in  order  to  suggest  to  what  colonial 
worship  of  a  coronet  must  lead.  The  tendency  at  present  is 
to  revive  the  system  of  colonial  titles.  Anybody  can  guess 
what  titles  and  title-hunting  in  colonial  society  must  beget. 
The  accolade  does  not  confer  chivalry.  In  the  Pacific  Eail- 
way  scandal,  out  of  four  men  implicated,  three  were  knights 
at  the  time,  the  fourth  was  afterwards  knighted,  and  as  a 
knight  got  into  other  scrapes  of  the  same  kind.  A  knight 
pays  with  a  place  in  a  government  department  a  printer  who 
has  stolen  proofs  from  his  ofiice  for  the  use  of  the  party  at  an 
election.  A  baronet  employs  without  shame,  for  a  political 
purpose,  private  letters,  the  property  of  other  persons,  which 
he  cannot  have  obtained  in  an  honourable  way.  Few  can 
believe  it  possible  to  plant  aristocracy  in  the  New  World.  Pitt 
tried  it  and  utterly  failed.  An  hereditary  Peerage  clearly  can- 
not live  without  entailed  estates;  you  might  have  a  mar- 
quess blacking  boots.  Even  a  baronetcy  is  a  temptation  to 
provide  an  estate  for  its  heirs  at  the  public  cost.  The  tendency 
of  the  whole  system  is  to  breed  subjects  for  a  colonial  Thack- 
eray. By  the  good  sense  of  the  Canadian  people  it  is  regarded 
with  aversion,  and  if  it  depended  on  their  vote,  it  would  come 
to  an  end.  As  to  any  influence  of  titles  or  of  the  political 
connection  generally  on  social  manners,  all  that  need  be  said 
is  that  the  manners  of  honest  industry  are  good  enough  if  they 
are  let  alone,  and  that  the  character  of  the  English  gentleman 
is  highly  susceptible  of  imitation  on  its  bad  side. 

Nationality  exalts  and  saves.  To  the  self-respect  of  a 
nation  appeals  are  seldom  made  wholly  in  vain.  Appeals  are 
not  made  in  vain  to  the  self-respect  of  the  people  of  the  United 


THE   EMPIRE.  173 

States.  Americans  outside  the  political  ring  are  ambitious  of 
being  great  citizens;  for  that  name  they  will  work  hard,  and, 
if  they  have  wealth,  spend  it  freely.  The  natural  ambition  of 
a  colonist  who  has  made  a  fortune  is  to  get  a  title,  go  to  Court, 
have  his  wife  presented,  and  gain  a  footing  in  the  aristocratic 
society  of  the  imperial  country.  His  affectious  and  aspira- 
tions do  not  centre  in  the  colony.  Not  seldom  he  leaves  it 
during  a  great  part  of  the  year,  sometimes  wholly,  for  London. 
He  must,  if  he  is  made  a  Peer.  In  public  munificence,  a 
dependency,  even  allowing  for  the  difference  of  wealth,  will 
not  bear  comparison  with  a  nation.  Deadlift  efforts  may  be 
made  to  cultivate  national  spirit  in  dependencies.  Like  all 
efforts  to  cultivate  artificial  sentiment,  they  will  be  made  in 
vain.  If  England  is  to  be  the  mother  of  free  nations,  the 
nations  must  be  free. 

The  case  of  Canada  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  those  of 
Australia  and  South  Africa.  Australia  lies  in  an  ocean  of  her 
own,  without  great  neighbours  nearer  than  China,  or  fear  of 
collision,  save  possibly  with  European  interlopers  in  her 
sphere.  South  Africa  has  no  neighbours  except  the  Boers  and 
the  savages.  The  Canadian  Dominion,  as  a  glance  at  the  map 
—  the  physical  and  economical,  not  the  political  map  —  will 
show,  is  the  northern  rim,  broken  by  three  wide  gaps,  of  a 
continent  of  which  the  inhabitants  are  a  people  of  the  same 
race,  language,  religion,  and  institutions,  with  whom  its  people, 
severed  only  by  an  obsolete  quarrel,  are  rapidly  blending  and 
would  unite  if  nature  had  her  way.  In  the  United  States  is 
Canada's  natural  market  for  buying  as  well  as  selling,  the 
market  which  her  productions  are  always  struggling  to  enter 
through  every  opening  in  the  tariff  wall,  for  exclusion  from 
which  no  distant  market  either  in  England  or  elsewhere  can 
compensate  her,  the  want  of  which  brings  on  her  commercial 
atrophy  and  drives  the  flower  of  her  youth  by  thousands  and 
tons  of  thousands  over  the  line.  Her  own  market,  as  a  whole, 
is  not  large,  and  it  is  broken  into  four,  between  which  there  is 
hardly  any  natural  trade,  and  little  has  been  forced  even  by 
the  most  stringent  system  of  protection.      A  correspondent  of 


174  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

tlie  Times  tells  his  readers  that  Canada  cannot  trade  with  the 
United  States  because  the  productions  of  both  are  the  same; 
as  though  productions  were  the  same  over  the  whole  continent 
from  Labrador  to  Louisiana!  The  same  writer  states  that 
Canada  is  35  per  cent,  of  the  whole  British  Empire,  which  she 
may  be  if  he  includes  the  north  pole.  The  demand  for  aid  for 
settlers  may  have  awakened  England  to  the  fact  that  the 
Canadian  North- West  remains  unpeopled.  It  remains  unpeo- 
pled while  the  neighbouring  States  of  the  Union  are  peopled 
because  it  is  cut  off  from  the  continent  to  which  it  belongs  by 
a  fiscal  and  political  line. 

There  is  an  especial  danger  in  the  retention  of  Canada,  both 
to  the  imperial  country  and  to  the  colony.  Canada,  British 
Canada  at  least  (and  England  cannot  be  too  often  reminded 
that  there  is  a  French  Canada  as  well  as  a  British),  with  her 
Governor-General's  court  and  her  mimic  aristocracy  of  bar- 
onets and  knights,  presents  herself  as  a  political  outpost  of 
monarchical  and  aristocratic  England  on  the  territory  of 
American  democracy.  In  this  spirit  her  fervent  loyalists  act, 
all  the  more  because  they  cannot  help  feeling  that  nature  is 
drawing  together  the  two  sections  of  the  English  race  on 
the  continent,  and  that  only  by  cultivating  antagonism  can  the 
attraction  be  countervailed.  Being  safe,  as  they  think,  under 
the  shield  of  England,  and  not  called  upon  even  to  pay  the 
expense  of  their  own  diplomacy,  they  are  tempted  to  indulge 
in  a  dangerously  spirited  bearing.  Thus  are  bred  disputes, 
of  one  of  which  arbitration  may  fail  to  dispose.  At  the  last 
election  the  government  distinctly  appealed  to  anti-American 
feeling,  and  leaders  made  anti-American  speeches  which  they 
afterwards  tried  to  soften,  but  which  had  been  faithfully 
taken  down;  while  their  less  responsible  followers,  going 
greater  lengths,  insulted  the  American  name  and  flag.  Sup- 
pose, to  use  the  illustration  once  more,  Scotland  were  an 
American  possession  and  an  outpost  of  American  Anglophobia. 

A  reunion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  in  a  political  or  diplomatic 
sense  there  can  hardly  be.  The  race  is  too  much  scattered, 
the  circumstances  of  its  members  differ  too  widely,  some  of 


THE   EMPIRE.  175 

them  are  too  mucli  mixed  with  other  races,  for  any  combina- 
tion of  that  kind.  How  could  Great  Britain  confederate,  even 
in  the  loosest  way,  with  the  United  States?  Where  would 
the  centre  of  such  a  union  be,  and  what  would  be  its  objects? 
If  the  object  were  merely  to  keep  the  peace  among  the  mem- 
bers of  the  confederacy,  that  might  be  done  in  a  simpler  way; 
if  to  impose  the  will  of  the  confederacy  upon  the  world,  the 
world  would  rise  against  the  confederacy.  This  is  a  day- 
dream. But  there  is  nothing  visionary  in  the  hope  of  a  moral 
reunion  of  the  race  in  which  would  be  buried  the  old  quarrel 
with  all  its  miserable  traces,  including  that  subserviency  to 
people  alien  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  mission  of  law,  into  which 
partly  by  their  dissensions  both  sections  have  been  betrayed. 
England  was  bound,  after  the  American  Eevolution,  to  keep 
her  flag  flying  over  the  loyalists  who  had  settled  in  Canada  as 
well  as  over  the  French  Catholics,  who  had  taken  her  side. 
This  duty  has  been  done;  and  if  Canada,  situated  as  she  is 
commercially  as  well  as  geographically,  and  with  a  solid 
French  nationality  in  the  midst  of  her,  is  capable  of  being 
and  desires  to  be  an  independent  nation,  from  American 
aggression,  once  more,  she  has  nothing  to  fear.  The  Ameri- 
cans have  territory  enough ;  though  they  cannot  fail  to  see  the 
advantages  of  a  united  continent,  they  are  too  wise  to  incor- 
porate disaffection.  They  know  that  if  they  wish  to  put 
pressure  on  Canada,  they  might  do  it,  without  giving  England 
a  pretext  for  drawing  her  sword,  by  stopping  the  bonding 
system,  depriving  Canada  of  Avinter  ports,  excluding  her  pro- 
ducts from  their  markets,  and  laying  a  hostile  hand  upon  her 
railways,  including  the  Canadian  Pacific,  Avhich,  though  Eng- 
lishmen seem  to  be  unaware  of  the  fact,  runs  through  the 
State  of  Maine.  Let  England,  then,  fairly  weigh  the  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages  of  this  possession  both  to  herself  and 
to  the  dependency,  and  let  her  not  be  beguiled  by  official  reports 
or  by  those  of  Governors-General  who  do  not  live  in  the  castle 
of  truth.  It  was  to  such  sources  that  England  and  her  govern- 
ment continued  to  trust  for  information  while  the  current  of 
events  was  drawing  them  towards  the  American  Eevolution. 


176  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Sentiment,  apart  from  utility,  nobody  would  disparage;  but 
apart  from  utility  it  cannot  long  subsist.  ISTor  is  loyalty,  how- 
ever loud,  or  even  sincere,  worth  much  unless  it  is  attested  by 
self-sacrifice.  A  Canadian  Parliament,  a  Conservative  Min- 
ister leading  the  way,  voted  sympathy  with  Home  Eule.  This 
was  done,  as  a  leading  Conservative  confessed  on  the  platform 
the  other  day,  because,  an  election  being  near,  it  was  necessary 
to  capture  the  Irish  Catholic  vote.  Judge  whether  these  men 
are  likely  to  pour  out  their  blood  without  stint  for  British 
connection;  see  at  least,  first,  whether  they  are  ready  to  pour 
out  a  little  money  or  to  reduce  their  duties  on  your  goods. 
*' Loyalty,"  said  Cobden,  "is  an  ironical  term  to  apply  to 
people  who  neither  pay  our  taxes  nor  obey  our  laws,  nor  hold 
themselves  liable  to  fight  our  battles,  who  would  repudiate  our 
right  to  the  sovereignty  over  an  acre  of  their  territory,  and 
who  claim  the  right  of  imposing  their  own  customs  duties  even 
to  the  exclusion  of  our  manufactures."  ^     Nothing  can  be  more 

1  Cobden  visited  Canada  and  the  United  States  more  than  once,  and 
when  the  Confederation  Act  was  on  the  stocks  wrote  as  follows  to  a 
friend:  "I  cannot  see  what  substantial  interest  the  British  people  have 
in  the  connection  to  compensate  them  for  guaranteeing  three  or  four 
millions  of  North  Americans  living  in  Canada  against  another  commu- 
nity of  Americans  living  in  their  neighbourhood.  We  are  told  indeed  of 
the  loyalty  of  the  Canadians,  but  this  is  an  ironical  term  to  apply  to 
people  who  neither  pay  our  taxes,  nor  obey  our  laws,  nor  hold  themselves 
liable  to  fight  our  battles,  who  would  repudiate  our  right  to  the  sover- 
eignty over  an  acre  of  their  territory,  and  who  claim  the  right  of  impos- 
ing their  own  customs  duties  even  to  the  exclusion  of  our  manufactures. 
We  are  two  peoples  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  and  it  is  a  perilous  delu- 
sion to  both  parties  to  attempt  to  keep  up  a  sham  connection  and  depen- 
dence, wliicli  will  snap  asunder  if  it  should  ever  be  put  to  the  strain  of 
stern  reality.  It  is  all  very  well  for  our  Cockney  newspapers  to  talk  of 
defending  Canada  at  all  hazards.  It  would  be  just  as  possible  for  the 
United  States  co  sustain  Yorkshire  in  a  war  with  England  as  for  us  to 
enable  Canada  to  contend  against  the  United  States.  It  is  simply  an 
impossibility.  Nor  must  we  forget  that  the  only  serious  danger  of  a 
quarrel  between  the  two  neighbours  arises  from  the  connection  of  Canada 
with  this  country.  In  my  opinion,  it  is  for  the  interest  of  both  that  we 
should,  as  speedily  as  possible,  sever  the  political  thread  by  which  we  are 


THE   EMPIRE.  177 

kindly  than  the  feeling  of  ordinary  Canadians,  who  seek  no 
titles  and  have  no  railways  to  vend,  towards  the  mother  conn- 
try  ;  but  it  does  not  prevent  them  from  tliinking  of  their  own 
interest  lirst.  Every  one  who  has  lived  in  the  United  States 
knows  that  there  is  many  an  American  of  the  better  class 
whose  heart  has  turned  to  Old  England.  Tlie  affection  of 
these  men  is  undeniably  genuine,  and  would  perhaps  stand  as 
severe  a  test  as  the  loyalty  of  the  dependency.  That  the  love 
of  colonists  other  than  those  whose  special  interests  or  aspira- 
tions are  bound  up  with  the  present  system  would  be  lessened 
by  the  dissolution  of  the  political  tie,  there  is  not  the  slightest 
reason  for  believing.  It  has  not  been  lessened  by  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  tie  to  a  mere  thread;  why  should  it  be  lessened  by 
the  dissolution?  Kace,  liistory,  literature,  depend  not  on 
political  connection.  The  Governor-Generalship  as  a  channel 
of  British  influence  on  the  Canadian  mind  would  be  well 
exchanged  for  the  free  importation  of  British  books. 

This  question  of  the  relation  of  the  colonies  cannot  be  set 
aside  as  unpractical.  It  may  at  any  moment  present  itself  in 
the  most  practical  form;  for  a  maritime  war  would  at  once 
reveal  the  inability  of  England  to  protect  her  distant  depen- 
dencies and  the  inability  of  the  dependencies  to  defend  their 
own  trade.  At  some  time  it  must  come,  for  nobody  believes 
that  Australia  and  Canada  can  forever  remain  in  a  state  of 
dependence.  Nobody  imagines  that  the  American  colonies, 
which  are  now  the  United  States,  even  if  there  had  been  no 
quarrel  with  George  III.,  could  have  remained  to  the  present 

as  communities  connected,  and  leave  the  individuals  on  both  sides  to 
cultivate  the  relations  of  commerce  and  friendly  intercourse  as  with  other 
nations.  I  have  felt  an  interest  in  this  Confederation  scheme  because  I 
thought  it  was  a  step  in  the  direction  of  an  amicable  separation.  I  am 
afraid  from  the  last  telegrams  that  there  may  be  a  difficulty  either  in  your 
province  or  in  Lower  Canada  in  carrying  out  the  project.  Whatever  may 
be  the  wish  of  the  colonies  will  meet  with  the  concurrence  of  our  (Jov- 
ernment  and  Parliament.  We  have  recognized  their  right  to  control 
their  own  fate  even  to  the  point  of  asserting  their  independence  when- 
ever they  think  fit,  and  which  we  know  to  be  only  a  question  of  time."  — 
Morley's  Life  of  Cvbden,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  470,  471. 

N 


178  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

day  dependencies  of  Great  Britain.  "There  is  a  period,"  said 
Lord  Blatchford,  "  in  the  life  of  distant  nations,  however  close 
their  original  connection,  at  wliich  each  must  pursue  its  own 
course,  whether  in  domestic  or  foreign  politics,  unembarrassed 
by  the  other's  leading.  And  the  arrival  of  that  period  depends 
upon  growth.  Every  increase  of  colonial  Avealth,  or  number, 
or  intelligence,  or  organisation,  is  in  one  sense  a  step  towards 
disintegration.  The  Confederation  of  Canada  was  therefore 
such  a  step."  The  opinion  of  Sir  G.  Cornewall  Lewis  in  his 
"Government  of  Dependencies,"  though,  like  all  his  opinions, 
cautiously  worded,  is  easy  to  read.  Even  Lord  Beaconsfield 
told  Lord  Malmesbury  in  confidence  that  the  colonies  would  be 
independent  in  a  few  years,  nor  did  he  shrink  from  saying  that 
they  were  a  millstone  round  the  neck  of  England  in  the  mean- 
time.^ If  the  question  must  come,  then,  why  not  face  it? 
Because  British  governments  are  ephemeral,  and  in  the  per- 
petual faction  fight  have  enough  to  do  to-day  without  thinking 
of  to-morrow.  Probably  the  end  will  come  in  the  form  of  a 
crash  or  shock  of  some  kind.  But  discussion  will  at  least 
teach  statesmanship  to  interpret  the  event  and  deal  wisely 
with  it  when  it  comes. 

The  West  India  Islands  are  lovely,  romantic,  steeped  in 
historic  memories.  But  as  a  British  possession  they  are 
almost  penal.  Profit  or  strength  from  them  Great  Britain 
derives  no  more.  In  case  of  a  maritime  war,  they  Avould  be  a 
real  burden  to  her.  But  she  is  bound  to  sustain  what  remains 
of  a  white  race,  and  to  keep  peace  between  the  races,  so  that 
there  may  be  no  more  Jamaica  massacres.  This  penalty  she 
pays  for  her  share  in  the  gains  of  slavery,  gains  which  them- 
selves were  losses,  for  the  West  Indian  slave-owners  corrupted 
her  society  and  her  politics.  Peace,  it  is  to  be  feared,  can  be 
kept  between  whites  and  blacks  only  by  a  power  superior  to 
both  of  them,  and  it  would  be  probably  better  for  the  islands 
if  they  were  dependencies  outright,  and  ruled  by  imperial 
governors,  provided  the  governors  were  strong  men  and  impar- 

1  See  Lord  Mabiiesbury's  Memoirs  of  an  Ex-Minister,  Vol.  I.,  p.  344, 


THE   EMPIRE.  179 

tial,  not  febrile  partisans  like  Governor  Eyre.  Negro  demo- 
cracy, after  a  pretty  long  trial  in  Hayti,  seems  to  be  a  total 
failure,  even  when  due  allowance  is  made  for  tlie  inauspicious 
circumstances  of  its  birth.  The  Americans  do  not  want  to 
incorporate  barbarous  populations  which  would  send  corrupt 
elements  to  Congress,  nor  do  they  want  to  annex  islands  for 
the  defence  of  which  they  would  have  to  keep  a  large  fleet. 
They  emphatically  declined  the  offer  of  San  Domingo. 

There  is  an  impression  that  the  question  of  the  colonial 
system  and  of  the  Empire  generally  was  mooted  some  time  ago 
by  the  Manchester  school,  and  that  the  mercenary  ideas  of  the 
school  prevailed  for  a  time,  but  were  presently  discarded, 
while  imperialism  resumed  its  generous  sway.  Opinion  is  a 
plant  not  only  of  slow,  but  of  fitful  growth.  Tlie  Manchester 
movement,  as  it  is  styled,  swej^t  away  military  occupation. 
Before  that  time  there  had  been  large  bodies  of  British  troops 
in  the  colonies,  and,  as  a  consequence,  a  series  of  Maori  and 
Kaffir  wars.  The  movement  got  rid  of  the  useless  and  trouble- 
some protectorate  of  the  Ionian  Islands.  It  gave  a  general 
impulse  to  colonial  emancipation,  which  has  constantly  ad- 
vanced since  that  time.  Almost  every  question  has  been 
determined  in  favour  of  colonial  self-government,  till  at  last 
the  colonies  stand  upon  the  brink  of  independence.  Canada  is 
now  claiming  even  diplomatic  independence  in  the  matter  of 
commercial  treaties,  which  she  proposes  to  make  for  herself 
under  the  name  and  on  the  responsibility  of  the  British  Foreign 
Office.  Slie  lias  half  emancipated  herself  judicially  from  the 
Privy  Council  by  the  creation  of  her  own  Supreme  Court.  She 
begins  to  be  rather  restless  under  the  military  command  of 
generals  sent  from  England.  At  this  point  there  is  a  natural 
recoil,  as  there  is  sure  to  be  at  any  parting,  however  inevitable, 
at  the  breaking  of  any  tie,  familiar,  though  it  may  be  obsolete. 
Moreover,  there  are  classes  whose  interests  and  aspirations  are 
bound  u])  with  the  system.  There  are  tlie  circle  of  colonial 
governors  and  tlie  candidates  foi-  imperial  titles.  Another 
reactionary  influence  of  a  subtle  kind  is  felt.     Home  Rulers 


180  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

find  in  fervent  imperialism  a  set-off  against  tlieir  separatism 
at  liome.  They  promise  themselves  and  their  country  an 
ample  reunion  as  compensation  for  dismemberment.  Hence 
the  movement  in  favour  of  Imperial  Federation.  On  this 
subject  the  writer  can  only  repeat  what  he  has  said  in  another 
work,  which,  being  on  a  special  question,  is  not  likely  to  have 
met  the  eye  of  the  reader  of  this  book.^ 

"It  was  probably  the  sight  of  the  tie  visibly  weakening  and 
of  the  approach  of  colonial  independence  that  gave  birth,  by  a 
recoil,  to  Imperial  Federation.  But  the  movement  has  been 
strangely  reinforced  from  another  source.  Home  Kulers,  who 
under  that  specious  name  would  surrender  Ireland  to  the 
Parnellites,  think  to  salve  their  own  patriotism  and  reconcile 
the  nation  to  their  policy  by  saying  that  in  breaking  up  the 
United  Kingdom  they  are  but  providing  raw  materials  for  a 
far  ampler  and  grander  union.  In  the  case  of  the  late  Mr. 
Forster,  the  only  statesman  who  has  very  seriously  embraced 
the  project,  something  might  be  due  to  the  Nemesis  of 
imagination  in  the  breast  of  a  Quaker. 

"The  Imperial  Federationists  refuse  to  tell  us  their  plan. 
They  bid  our  bosoms  dilate  with  trustful  enthusiasm  for 
arrangements  which  are  yet  to  be  revealed.  They  say  it  is 
not  yet  time  for  the  disclosure.  Not  yet  time,  when  the  last 
strand  of  political  connection  is  worn  almost  to  the  last  thread, 
and  when  every  day  the  sentiment  opposed  to  centralisation  is 
implanting  itself  more  deeply  in  colonial  hearts !  While  we 
are  bidden  to  wait  patiently  for  the  tide,  the  tide  is  running 
strongly  the  other  way.  Now  Newfoundland  claims  the  right 
of  making  her  own  commercial  agreements  with  the  United 
States  independently  of  other  colonies.  Disintegration,  surely, 
is  on  the  point  of  being  complete. 

"  At  least  we  may  be  told  of  whom  the  Confederation  is  to 
consist.  Are  the  negroes  of  the  West  Indies  to  be  included? 
Is  Quashee  to  vote  on  imperial  policy?  But  above  all,  what 
is  to  be  done  with  India?  Is  it,  as  a  Colonial  Federationist  of 
thoroughgoing  democratic  tendencies  demanded  the  other  day, 

1  Canada  and  the  Cunadiiin  Question,  pp.  296-309. 


THE   EMPIRE.  181 

to  be  taken  into  Federation  and  enfranchised?  If  it  is,  the 
Hindoo  will  outvote  us  five  to  one,  and  what  he  will  do  with 
us  only  those  who  have  fathomed  the  Oriental  mystery  can 
pretend  to  say.  Is  it  to  remain  a  dependency?  If  it  is,  to 
whom  is  it  to  belong?  To  a  Federation  of  democratic  com- 
munities scattered  over  the  globe,  some  of  which,  like  Canada, 
have  no  interest  in  it  whatever?  Its  fate  as  an  Empire  would 
then  be  sealed,  if  it  is  not  sealed  already  by  the  progress  of 
democracy  in  Great  Britain.  Or  is  it  to  belong  to  England 
alone?  In  that  case  one  member  of  the  Confederacy  will  have 
an  Empire  apart  five  times  as  large  as  the  rest  of  the  Confed- 
eration, requiring  separate  armaments  and  a  diplomacy  of  its 
own.  How  would  the  American  Confederation  work  if  one 
State  held  South  America  as  an  Empire?  Some  have  suggested 
that  Hindostan  should  be  represented  by  the  British  residents 
in  India  alone.     If  it  were,  woe  to  the  Hindoo! 

"  Again,  the  object  of  the  Association  surely  must  be  known. 
Every  Association  of  a  practical  kind  must  have  a  definite 
object  to  hold  it  together.  The  objects  which  naturally  sug- 
gest themselves  are  common  armaments  and  a  common  tariff. 
But  Canada,  as  we  have  seen,  refuses  to  contribute  to  common 
armaments,  and  Australia,  tliough  she  sent  a  regiment  to  the 
Soudan,  now  apparently  repents  of  having  done  it.  Great 
Britain  is  a  war  power;  the  colonists,  like  the  Americans,  are 
essentially  unmilitary,  and  here  would  be  the  beginning  of 
troubles.  As  to  the  tariff,  the  Canadian  Protectionists,  who 
make  use  of  Imperial  Federation  as  a  stalking-horse  in  their 
struggle  against  free  trade  with  the  United  States,  are  always 
careful  to  say  that  they  do  not  mean  to  resign  their  right  of 
laying  protective  duties  on  British  goods.  Victoria  also  seems 
wedded  to  her  Protective  system.  What  remains  but  improve- 
ment of  postal  communication  and  a  Colonial  Exhibition, 
neither  of  which  surely  calls  for  a  political  combination 
unprecedented  in  history? 

"Unprecedented  in  history  the  combination  would  be.  The 
Roman  Empire,  the  thought  of  which  and  of  its  Civis  llomnnus 
sum,  is  always  hovering  before  our  minds,  was  vast,  but  it  was 


182  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

all  in  a  ring-fence.  Moreover,  it  had  its  world  to  itself,  no 
rival  powers  being  interposed  between  Rome  and  her  Pro- 
vinces. It  was  an  Empire  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term.  Its 
members  were  all  alike  in  strict  subordination  to  its  head.  The 
head  determined  the  policy  without  question,  and  danger  to 
unity  from  divided  counsels  there  was  none.  We  confuse  our 
minds,  as  was  said  before,  by  an  improper  use  of  the  term 
Empire.  The  name  applies  to  India,  but  to  nothing  else  con- 
nected with  Great  Britain  unless  it  be  the  fortresses  and  Crown 
Colonies.  Our  self-governed  colonies  are  not  members  of  an 
Empire,  but  free  communities  virtually  independent  of  the 
mother  country,  which  for  the  purpose  of  Confederation  would 
be  called  upon  to  resign  a  portion  of  their  independence.  Of 
the  Spanish  Empire  it  is  needless  to  speak.  Its  name  is  an 
omen  of  disaster  and  a  warning  against  the  blind  ambition 
which  mistakes  combination  for  union  and  colossal  weakness 
for  power.  After  all,  the  Eoman  Empire  itself  fell,  and  partly 
because  the  life  was  drawn  from  the  members  to  the  head. 

"The  Achsean  League,  the  Swiss  Bund,  the  Union  of  the 
Netherlands,  the  American  Union,  all  were  perfectly  natural 
combinations,  not  only  suggested  but  commanded  by  a  common 
peril.  In  three  out  of  the  four  cases  the  communities  which 
entered  into  the  compact  were  kindred  in  all  respects ;  in  the 
case  of  the  Swiss  Bund  they  were  equal.  In  the  case  of  the 
Confederation  now  proposed,  they  would  be  neither  kindred 
nor  equal ;  and  fasten  the  people  of  the  British  Islands,  those 
of  self-governed  colonies,  the  Hindoo,  the  African,  and  the 
Kaffir  together  with  what  legislative  clamps  you  will,  yovi 
cannot  produce  the  unity  of  political  character  and  sentiment 
which  is  essential  to  community  of  counsels,  much  more  to 
national  union. 

"Steam  and  telegraph,  we  are  told,  have  annihilated  dis- 
tance. They  have  not  annihilated  the  parish  steeple.  They 
have  not  carried  the  thoughts  of  the  ordinary  citizen  beyond 
the  circle  of  his  own  life  and  work.  They  have  not  qualified  a 
common  farmer,  tradesman,  ploughman,  or  artisan  to  direct 
the  politics  of  a  world-wide  State.     How  much  does  an  ordi- 


THE   EMPIRE.  188 

nary  Canadian  know  or  care  about  Australia,  an  ordinary 
Australian  about  Canada,  or  an  ordinary  Englishman,  Scotcli- 
nian,  or  Irishman  about  either?  The  feeling  of  all  the 
colonists  toAvards  the  mother  country,  when  you  appeal  to  it, 
is  thoroughly  kind,  as  is  that  of  the  mother  country  towards 
the  colonies.  But  Canadian  notions  of  British  politics  are 
hazy,  and  still  more  hazy  are  Britisli  notions  of  the  politics  of 
Canada.  When  John  Sandfield  Macdonald,  the  Prime  Minis- 
ter of  Ontario,  died,  his  death  was  chronicled  by  British 
journals  as  that  of  Sir  John  A.  Macdonald,  the  Prime  Minister 
of  the  Dominion. 

"The  different  Provinces  of  Canada  cannot  be  made  to  sink 
their  local  interests  in  that  of  the  Dominion.  How  much  less 
could  all  the  colonies  be  made  to  sink  their  local  interests  in 
that  of  the  Imperial  Federation! 

"About  India  Englishmen  know  more,  because  their  interest 
in  it  is  so  great;  but  Canadians  know  nothing.  The  framers 
of  these  vast  political  schemes,  having  their  own  eyes  fixed  on 
the  political  firmament,  forget  that  the  eyes  of  men  in  general 
are  fixed  on  the  path  they  tread.  The  suffrage  of  the  Federa- 
tion ought  to  be  limited  to  far-reaching  and  imaginative  minds. 

"A  grand  idea  may  be  at  the  same  time  practical.  The  idea 
of  a  United  Continent  of  North  America,  securing  free  trade 
and  intercourse  over  a  vast  area,  with  external  safety  and  in- 
ternal peace,  is  no  less  practical  than  it  is  grand.  The  benefits 
of  such  a  union  vv^ould  be  always  present  to  the  mind  of  the 
least  instructed  citizen.  The  sentiment  connected  with  it 
Avould  be  a  foundation  on  which  the  political  architect  could 
build.  Imperial  Federation,  to  the  mass  of  the  people  com- 
prised in  it,  would  be  a  mere  name  conveying  witli  it  no 
definite  sense  of  benefit  on  which  anything  could  be  built. 

"  To  press  this  receding  vision  a  little  closer,  what  would  be 
the  relation  of  the  Federal  Government  to  the  British  mon- 
archy? Would  the  same  (^ueen  be  sovereign  of  both?  Would 
she  have  two  sets  of  advisers?  Suppose  they  should  advise 
her  different  ways !  Would  she  appoint,  as  she  does  now,  the 
heads  of  all  the  other  members  of  the  Federation?     It  would 


184  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

hardly  do  to  let  the  President  of  the  United  States  appoint  all 
the  State  Governors.  How  would  the  Supreme  Court  be  con- 
stituted? Such  an  authority  would  certainly  be  needed  to 
interpret  the  Constitution,  and  the  British  monarchy  would 
have  to  be  a  suitor  before  it.  How  would  the  decrees  of  the 
Federal  Government  be  enforced,  say,  in  case  of  refusal  to 
send  the  war  contingent?  How,  again,  would  the  representa- 
tion in  the  Federal  Parliament  be  apportioned?  If  by  popula- 
tion, the  representation  of  the  British  Islands  would  so  out- 
number the  rest  that  the  rest  would  deem  their  representation 
practically  a  nullity,  and  jealousy  and  cabals  would  at  once 
arise.  The  very  number,  too,  would  be  a  dilficulty.  If  Great 
Britain  had  members  in  proportion  to  St.  Helena  and  Fiji,  the 
Parliament  would  have  to  meet  on  Salisbury  Plain.  These  are 
not  questions  of  detail,  nor  do  they  attach  only  to  a  particular 
scheme;  they  are  fundamental,  and  attach  to  every  scheme 
that  can  be  conceived. 

"  The  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  mvist  cease  to  be  a  Sover- 
eign Power.  The  imperial  Congress  itself  would  not  be  a 
Sovereign  Power.  Like  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  it 
would  be  subject  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  would  have 
so  much  authority  only  as  that  Constitution  assigned  it.  The 
Sovereign  Power  would  be  the  people  of  the  Empire  at  large, 
and  a  curious  Sovereign  they  would  be. 

"  The  same  person  could  not  be  the  head  at  once  of  a  Federa- 
tion and  of  one  of  tlie  communities  included  in  it,  any  more 
than  the  same  person  could  be  President  of  the  United  States 
and  Governor  of  the  State  of  New  York.  Her  Majesty  would 
have  to  choose  between  the  British  and  the  Pan-Britannic 
Crown. 

"  Canada  is  a  Confederation  in  herself.  Movements  are  on 
foot  for  a  Confederation  of  the  Australian  Colonies  and  of 
those  of  South  Africa.  Confederation  of  the  West  India 
Islands  has  also  been  proposed.  We  should  thus  have  a  strik- 
ing novelty  in  political  architecture  in  the  shape  of  a  Con- 
federation of  Confederations.  But  it  seems  certain  that  ISTew 
Zealand  would  not,  and  that  some  isolated  colonies  could  not. 


THE   EMPIRE.  185 

join  any  Federation,  in  which  case  the  members  of  the  Central 
Parliament  would  represent  partly  Federations,  partly  single 
commnnities.  Strange,  apparently,  would  be  the  complica- 
tion of  fealties,  obligations,  and  sentiments  which  would  hence 
arise. 

"  This  Union,  so  complex  in  its  machinery,  with  its  members 
scattered  over  the  world,  and  distracted  by  interests  as  wide 
apart  as  the  shores  of  its  members,  Home  Rulers  think  they 
could  maintain,  while  they  bid  us  despair  of  maintaining  the 
Parliamentary  Union  of  Ireland  with  Great  Britain. 

"Even  to  assemble  the  Constituent  Convention  Avould  be  no 
easy  task.  The  governments,  British  and  Colonial,  are  all 
party  governments  and  all  liable  to  constant  change.  The 
delegate  trusted  by  one  party  would  not  have  the  confidence 
of  the  other,  and  before  the  Convention  could  proceed  to  busi- 
ness somebody's  credentials  would  be  withdrawn.  We  have 
seen  in  the  case  of  Canadian  Confederation  how  Nova  Scotia, 
New  Brunswick,  and  Prince  Edward  Island  flew  off  from  the 
agreement  at  which  their  delegates  had  arrived.  In  truth 
there  would  probably  be  a  general  falling  away  as  soon  as 
payment  for  Imperial  armaments  came  into  view. 

"  The  Federation  would  be  nothing  if  not  diplomatic.  But 
whose  diplomacy  is  to  prevail?  That  of  Great  Britain,  a 
European  Power  and  at  the  same  time  Mistress  of  India? 
That  of  Australia,  with  her  Eastern  relations  and  her  Chinese 
question?  Or  that  of  Canada,  bound  u])  with  the  American 
Continent,  indifferent  to  everything  in  Europe  or  Asia,  and 
concerned  only  with  her  relation  to  the  United  States?  Aus- 
tralia, we  have  been  told,  already  betrays  her  intention  of 
breaking  away  from  England  should  Britisli  policy  ever  take  a 
line  adverse  to  her  special  interests  in  the  East,  and  such  a  line 
British  policy  must  take  if  the  special  interests  of  Australia 
are  ever  to  lead  her  into  a  conflict  with  the  Chinese. 

"Switzerland,  the  Netherlands,  and  the  United  States,  all 
federated  under  the  pressure  of  necessity,  which,  stern  ami 
manifest  as  it  was,  had  yet  scarcely  the  power  to  overcome  the 
centralised  forces.     To  do  the  work  of  that  necessity  there 


186  QUESTIONS  OF  THE   BAY. 

ouglit  at  least  to  be  an  equally  strong  desire.  But  what  proof 
have  we  of  the  existence  of  suoJi  a  desire?  Australia,  far 
from  being  eager,  seems  to  be  adverse;  in  some  of  her  cities 
the  missionary  of  Imperial  Federation  can  scarcely  find  an 
audience.  From  South  Africa  comes  no  audible  response.  In 
British  Canada  the  movement  has  no  apparent  strength  except 
what  it  derives  from  an  alliance  with  Protectionism,  which,  as 
has  already  been  said,  repudiates  a  commercial  union  of  the 
Empire  and  insists  on  maintaining  its  separate  tariff.  To  the 
French  Nationalists  of  Quebec  anything  that  would  bind  their 
country  closer  to  Great  Britain  is  odious,  and  they  were  recently 
disposed  to  receive  a  Governor-General  coldly  because  they 
suspected  him  of  favouring  such  a  policy.  In  Great  Britain 
itself  the  movement  shows  no  sign  of  strength.  For  several 
years,  under  Lord  Beaconsfield,  Imperialism  had  everything 
its  own  way,  yet  not  a  step  was  taken  towards  Federation. 
This  was  the  grand  opportunity;  but  Federationists  failed  to 
grasp  it  by  the  forelock.  Nothing  has  been  done  to  this  hour 
beyond  holding  a  meeting  of  colonists,  absolutely  without 
authority,  which  dined,  wined,  and  talked  about  postal  com- 
munications, all  power  of  dealing  with  the  great  question  hav- 
ing been  expressly  withheld.  Lord  Beaconsfield's  successor 
in  the  Tory  leadership  has  plainly  declined  to  commit  himself 
to  the  project.  We  seem  to  be  a  long  way  from  a  spontaneous 
and  overwhelming  vote,  n-othing  short  of  which  would  suffice. 

"  The  approach  to  centralisation  at  once  sets  all  the  centri- 
fugal forces  in  action;  it  did  this  even  in  the  American 
Federation,  so  that  the  project  narrowly  escaped  wreck;  and 
miscarriage  would  beget,  instead  of  closer  union,  discord, 
estrangement,  and  perhaps  rupture.  Let  us  bear  in  mind  the 
warning  example  of  the  rupture  with  the  American  colonies. 

"  What  is  tlie  real  motive  for  encountering  all  the  difficulties 
and  perils  of  this  more  than  gigantic  undertaking,  for  running 
laboriously  counter  to  the  recent  course  of  colonial  history,  as 
well  as  to  the  natural  tendencies  of  our  race,  and  for  taking 
the  political  heart  and  brain,  as  it  were,  out  of  each  of  these 
free  communities  and  transferring  them  to  London?     We  are 


THE   EMPIEE.  187 

told  tliat  the  Federal  Empire  would  impose  peace  upon  the 
world.  This  assumes  that  dispersion  is  strength,  and  that 
Great  Britain  would  be  made  more  formidable  in  war  by  being 
bound  up  with  unwarlike  communities.  But  suppose  it  true; 
surely  the  appearance  of  a  world-wide  power,  grasping  all  the 
waterways  and  all  the  points  of  maritime  vantage,  instead  of 
propagating  peace,  would,  like  an  alarm  gun,  call  the  nations 
to  battle?  The  way  to  make  peace  on  earth  is  to  promote  the 
coming  not  of  an  exclusive  military  league  but  the  Parliament 
of  Man,  the  moral  Parliament  of  Man  at  least,  by  enlarging 
the  action  of  international  law  and  repressing  the  ambitious 
passions  to  which,  however  philanthropic  may  be  our  profes- 
sions, Imperialism  really  appeals. 

"  If  no  distinct  object  can  be  assigned,  if  no  definite  plan  can 
be  produced,  if  the  projectors  are  conscious  that  there  is  no 
practical  step  on  which  they  can  venture,  surely  the  project 
ought  to  be  frankly  laid  aside  and  no  longer  allowed  to  darken 
counsel,  hide  from  us  the  real  facts  of  the  situation,  and  pre- 
vent the  colonies  from  advancing  on  the  true  path. 

"There  is  a  federation  which  is  feasible,  and,  to  those  who 
do  not  measure  grandeur  by  physical  force  or  extension,  at 
least  as  grand  as  that  of  which  the  Imperialist  dreams.  It  is 
the  moral  federation  of  the  whole  English-speaking  race 
throughout  the  world,  including  all  those  millions  of  men 
speaking  the  English  language  in  the  United  States,  and  parted 
froni  the  rest  only  a  century  ago  by  a  Avretched  quarrel,  whom 
Imperial  Federation  would  leave  out  of  its  pale.  Nothing  is 
needed  to  bring  this  about  but  the  voluntary  retirement  of 
England  as  a  political  power  from  a  shadowy  Dominion  in  a 
sphere  which  is  not  hers. 

"  Unless  all  present  appearances  on  the  political  horizon  are 
delusive,  the  time  is  at  hand  when  the  upheaval  of  the  labour 
world,  and  the  social  problems  which  are  coming  into  view, 
will  give  politicians  more  serious  and  substantial  matter  for 
thought  than  the  airy  fabric  of  Imperial  Federation. 

"  The  old  project  of  giving  the  colonies  representation  in  the 
Imperial  Parliament  appears  to  have  been  laid  aside.     The 


188  QUESTIONS    OF   THE   DAY. 

objections  urged  against  it  by  Burke  on  the  ground  of  distance 
have  been  to  a  great  extent  removed  by  steam,  though  it 
might  even  now  be  difficult  to  call  together  a  world-wide 
Parliament  in  time  of  maritime  war.  But  the  objection  still 
decisive  is  that  the  colonies  would  not  put  their  affairs  into  tlie 
hands  of  an  Assembly  in  which  their  representation  would  be 
overwhelmingly  outnumbered.  Nor  could  they  trust  represen- 
tatives domiciled  in  London  who,  under  the  influence  of  London 
society,  would  be  apt  to  become  more  British  than  the  British 
themselves.  These  new  countries,  which  have  such  difficulty 
in  finding  suitable  men  for  their  own  legislatures,  would  have 
difficulty  in  finding  men  to  represent  them  at  Westminster  at 
all.  They  might  have  to  fall  back  on  expatriated  men  of 
wealth,  in  whom,  as  representatives  of  colonial  sentiment,  very 
little  confidence  could  be  placed.  Supposing  that  the  members 
for  the  colonies  remained  colonial,  and  tried  to  make  up  for 
their  lack  of  numbers  at  Westminster  by  combining  among 
themselves  and  log-rolling,  they  might  become  a  serious  addi- 
tion to  the  distractions  of  the  British  Parliament,  which 
assuredly  need  no  increase. 

"  Let  it  be  taken  as  certain  and  irreversible  that  the  colonies 
will  not  part  with  any  portion  of  their  self-government.  If  a 
scheme  can  be  devised  by  which  they  can  be  governed  by  an 
Assembly  at  Westminster  without  any  loss  to  them  of  self- 
government  it  may,  supposing  it  be  presented  to  them  in  an 
intelligible  and  practical  form,  stand  a  chance  of  consideration 
at  their  hands. 

"A  crumb  of  comfort  has  just  fallen  to  the  advocates  of 
Imperial  Federation  in  the  shape  of  a  Peerage  conferred  on  a 
colonist.  This  is  hailed  as  representation  of  the  colonies  in 
the  British  Parliament.  The  number  of  such  Peers  must 
always  be  very  small,  wliile  the  House  in  which  they  sit  is  not 
that  of  power  but  that  from  which  power  has  departed.  But 
who  can  less  represent  colonial  sentiment  than  a  millionaire 
transplanted  to  Mayfair?  A  millionaire,  to  be  made  a  Peer  a 
man  must  be,  and  to  have  made  money  out  of  the  Colony  rather 
than  to  have  done  service  in  it  will  be  the  indispensable  quali- 


THE   EMPIRE.  139 

fication  for  the  honour.  In  particular  cases  the  two  qualifica- 
tions may  no  doubt  be  combined;  hut  the  general  fruits  of  the 
})ractice  are  likely  to  be  false  ambition  and  enhanced  desire 
of  gain. 

"  The  Imperial  Federationists  seem  now  to  be  splitting  into 
sections  with  different  policies  and  organs.  Apart  from  the 
advocates  of  an  Imperial  Parliament,  whose  confidence  seems 
to  be  failing,  stand  the  advocates  of  a  military  league  on  one 
hand  and  of  a  fiscal  league  on  the  other,  or,  if  the  German 
words  are  preferred,  of  a  Kriegsverein  and  a  Zollverein.  The 
advocates  of  a  Kriegsverein  have  had  their  answer,  so  far  as 
Canada  is  concerned,  from  the  Canadian  Commissioner,  who 
tells  them  that  liberty  of  transit  over  Canadian  roads,  at  the 
regular  rates,  will  be  Canada's  contribution.  They  are  now 
confronted  by  fact.  The  advocates  of  a  Zollverein  will  find 
themselves  confronted  by  fact  as  soon  as  they  choose  to  put  to 
the  protected  manufacturer  of  Canada  the  question  whether  he 
is  willing,  in  consideration  of  imperial  discrimination  in  her 
favour,  to  reduce  the  import  duties  on  British  goods.  Had  the 
apostle  of  fiscal  Imperialism,  who  fancies  that  he  has  all  Canada 
in  his  favour,  mooted  that  point  before  an  audience  at  Toronto 
or  Montreal,  a  chill  would  at  once  have  come  over  the  assembly. 

*'  The  latest  scheme  is  that  proposed  by  the  Canadian  Com- 
missioner, who  suggests  that  to  cement  the  imperial  fabric  he 
and  his  two  fellow-Commissioners  from  Australia  and  South 
Africa  should  be  made  Privy  Councillors  and  members  at  once 
of  the  imperial  and  the  colonial  Cabinet.  He  at  the  same 
time  lauds  the  practice  of  making  colonial  Peers.  It  is  to  be 
feared  that  among  these  Commissioners  only  one  would  be 
found  capable  of  thus  mentally  bestriding  the  ocean  and  shar- 
ing at  once  the  councils  of  two  Cabinets,  perhaps  belonging  to 
opposite  pai'ties  and  having  different  ends  in  view.  The 
scheme  has  found  as  yet  but  one  adherent." 


As  war  is  the  peril  of  Empire,  a  paper  on  the  subject  of  the 
Empire  is  hardly  complete  without  a  word  as  to  the  proba- 


190  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

bilities  of  war.  Is  the  tendency  to  war  declining?  Are  the 
hopes  01  the  Peace  Society  on  the  eve  or  near  the  eve  of  being 
fulfilled?  More  men  are  under  arms  in  Europe  than  ever  were 
under  arms  before.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  the  course 
of  history  the  war  spirit  has  on  the  whole  grown  weaker.  It 
plainly  recedes  before  the  advance  of  civilisation.  An  Assyr- 
ian or  Persian  king  made  his  annual  war  as  regularly  as  a 
king  of  France  made  his  annual  hunt;  and  the  same  was  the 
habit  of  the  Turkish  Sultans  while  their  Empire  was  strong. 
War  in  the  eyes  of  a  Greek  or  Roman  was  the  highest  of 
occupations,  and  Plato's  ideal  citizens  are  warriors.  Industry 
was  the  lot  and  badge  of  the  slave.  War  is  now  not  normal 
but  exceptional.  Of  late  there  has  been  a  distinct  growth  of 
moral  sentiment  against  the  use  of  the  sword.  Charles  V. 
told  a  young  soldier  who  pined  for  action  that  he  loved  peace 
no  more  than  the  youth  himself.  At  a  much  later  day  Chat- 
ham avowed  himself  "  a  lover  of  honourable  war ;  "  and  in  the 
writings  of  Burke  will  be  found  a  general  recognition  of  suc- 
cess in  war  as  a  test  of  national  happiness  and  greatness. 
Peace  sentiment  is  of  course  confined  to  the  domain  of  moral 
civilisation ;  it  does  not  prevail  among  the  Turks,  or  among  the 
people  of  South  America;  nor  does  it  prevail  in  its  moral  form 
among  the  Chinese,  though  they  have  an  industrial  antipathy 
to  arms  and  the  military  profession.  It  can  scarcely  be  said 
that  religion  has  done  much  to  quell  the  spirit  of  war.  The 
Polytheistic  religion  of  the  ancients  encouraged  it  by  identify- 
ing the  god  with  the  victory  and  aggrandisement  of  the  tribe. 
The  books  which  embody  the  tribal  religion  of  the  Jew  incited 
him  to  wage  internecine  war  with  the  neighbouring  tribes,  and 
Christian  believers  in  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament  have 
thence  learned  to  fight  the  battles  of  the  Lord.  The  Gospel  is 
in  principle  against  war,  yet  does  not  expressly  condemn  it, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  recognises  the  soldier's  calling  as  lawful, 
and  by  likening  the  Christian's  fight  to  that  of  the  warrior 
seems  to  imply  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  warrior's  fight 
repugnant  to  Christian  sentiment.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
Christianity  has  not  persuaded  nations  to  turn  the  other  cheek 


THE   EMriRE.  191 

to  the  smiter.  National  churches  have  lapsed  into  something 
very  like  tribalism  in  this  respect.  They  have  assumed  that 
the  Lord  of  Hosts  went  forth  with  the  national  army  to  battle. 
They  have  sung  Te  Deum,  hung  up  trophies  in  tlieir  temples, 
and  blessed  standards,  to  say  nothing  of  the  part  played  by  the 
clergy  as  trumpeters  of  religious  war. 

The  tendency  of  democracy  appears  to  be  against  war. 
Eome,  though  a  Eepublic,  was  not  a  democracy,  but  an  aris- 
tocracy ending  in  an  empire.  Athens,  Avhich  has  been  often 
cited  as  an  example  of  military  ambition  in  a  democracy,  was 
a  slave-owning  State.  The  Italian  Republics  were  born  into 
a  world  of  feudal  Avar;  but  they  presently  showed  their  ten- 
dency by  hiring  mercenaries  to  do  the  fighting  on  their  behalf. 
If  the  motive  power  here  was  industry  rather  than  democracy, 
the  two  commonly  go  together,  and  it  is  only  under  democracy 
that  industry  rules  the  State.  The  case  of  revolutionary  France 
was  manifestly  abnormal.  Under  the  Convention  she  was  a 
dictatorate  in  commission,  not  a  democracy,  and  the  forces 
which  her  masters  wielded  were  inherited  by  them  with  the 
power  of  conscription  from  the  military  monarchy,  Avhile  the 
supplies  were  raised  by  confiscation.  Among  the  South 
American  States  there  has  been  constant  fighting ;  but  they  are 
democratic  in  form  only,  in  reality  they  are  dictatorates,  power 
passing  usually  by  violence  from  hand  to  hand.  The  American 
democracy  made  the  greatest  war  since  those  of  Napoleon;  but 
this  Avas  a  Avar  of  self-preservation,  and  no  disposition  Avas 
shoAvn  to  make  use  of  the  A^ast  armaments  on  foot  at  its  close. 
The  American  army  was  rapidly  reduced  to  its  regular  number, 
which  is  twenty-five  thousand  for  a  total  community  of  sixty- 
five  millions,  barely  sufficient  to  fight  the  Indians  and  secure 
domestic  order;  Avhile  of  the  navy,  an  American  Avit  said 
that  it  could  be  run  down  by  a  coal  barge.  The  strongest  case 
on  the  other  side  is  that  of  France,  Avhere  universal  suffrage 
has  so  far  not  made  the  goA'crnment  less  military  or  led  to 
reduction  of  armaments ;  though  it  might  have  been  suspected 
that  the  peasantry  who  have  groaned  under  the  conscription 
Avould  at  once  have  voted  it  down.     But  the  Bonapartes,  fol- 


192  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

lowing  the  Bourbons,  so  filled  France  with  military  spirit, 
and  obedience  to  military  command  is  so  ingrained,  that  a 
change  was  likely  to  take  time.  Democracy  is  humane,  as  its 
criminal  code  proves;  for  no  one  would  set  down  the  Prench 
Eeign  of  Terror  as  democratic.  Its  humanity  is  connected 
with  its  equality,  which  makes  all  lives  of  the  same  value,  and 
forbids  the  common  people  to  be  treated  as  food  for  powder. 
With  a  military  despot  like  jSTapoleon,  or  a  high  and  cold  aris- 
tocracy, the  slaughter  of  peasants  goes  for  nothing.  For  the 
same  reason  democratic  wars  are  expensive,  popular  sentiment 
requiring  that  good  provision  shall  be  made  not  only  for  the 
general  but  for  all  alike.  The  American  War  of  Secession 
was  enormously  expensive  to  the  democratic  North,  which 
sujiplied  its  armies  lavishly,  gave  large  bounties  for  enlist- 
ment, and  is  now  paying  in  pensions  an  annual  sum  equal  to 
the  total  cost  of  a  great  European  army.  The  slave-owning 
aristocracy  of  the  South  could  raise  its  forces  by  sheer  con- 
scription, and  force  them  to  fight  without  pay  and  sometimes 
without  food. 

Of  the  old  causes  of  war,  some  may  be  said  to  have  died  out 
so  far  as  the  civilised  world  is  concerned.  No  civilised  gov- 
ernment would  now  set  out,  like  Sennacherib  or  Xerxes,  on  an 
unprovoked  career  of  territorial  conquest.  No  civilised  gov- 
ernment, or  government  pretending  to  be  civilised,  except 
perhaps  that  of  a  Bonaparte,  would  even  commit  such  terri- 
torial aggression  as  was  committed  by  Louis  XIV.  Frederick 
the  Great  set  up  a  legal  claim,  at  all  events,  to  Silesia.  The 
last  great  exception  to  this  improvement  of  sentiment,  a 
tremendous  exception  certainly,  were  the  conquests  of  Napo- 
leon, especiall}^  his  piratical  invasion  of  Spain.  Napoleon  was 
not  a  child  of  moral  civilisation;  he  was  a  child  of  Corsican 
brigandage  and  barbarism,  whose  military  genius,  called  into 
play  by  the  wars  of  the  Eevolution,  made  him  for  a  time 
almost  master  of  the  civilised  world.  His  influence  did  not 
end  with  his  fall.  He  had  evoked  a  spirit  of  militarism 
which,  like  his  ascendancy,  may  be  regarded  as  an  accident  of 
history    and   destined   to   pass  away.      Russia,  among   other 


THE    EMPIRE.  193 

characteristics  of  a  backward  civilisation,  may  still  be  capable 
of  a  war  of  sheer  conquest.  But  her  ambition  points  in  one 
direction,  that  of  Constantinople,  and  seeks  at  least  to  reconcile 
itself  with  morality  by  pleading  the  decadence  of  Turkey  and 
the  duty  of  rescuing  from  oppression  the  Slav  and  Christian 
subjects  of  the  Porte.  The  fear,  real  or  affected,  of  Eussian 
ambition  it  was  that,  by  bringing  on  the  Crimean  war,  broke 
the  spell,  which  Europe  had  begun  to  hope  would  be  lasting, 
of  the  forty  years'  peace.  Of  the  religious  wars  which  deso- 
lated Europe  in  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries  we 
shall  hear  no  more.  Faith  is  now  too  weak  for  Catholic 
leagues  as  well  as  for  crusades.  By  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  the  conflict  had  lost  much  of  its  religious  char- 
acter and  become  political  or  territorial.  Presently  we  have 
the  Pope  himself,  as  an  Italian  Prince,  on  the  same  side  with 
Protestant  Powers.  Dynastic  wars  may  also  be  considered  as 
numbered  with  the  past;  so  may  the  commercial  wars  which 
owed  their  origin  to  the  monopolist  fallacies  of  the  last  cen- 
tury. On  the  other  hand,  we  have  recently  had  wars  of  national 
revival  and  reconstruction ;  the  war  between  Austria  and  Ger- 
many, which  attended  the  restoration  of  German  unity,  and 
the  war  between  Germany  and  Erance,  which  the  French 
jealousy  of  the  restored  unity  of  Germany  entailed.  There 
may  yet  be  more  trouble  of  this  kind  in  the  Austrian  Empire, 
in  the  Turkish  Empire,  and  possibly  in  Scandinavia,  in  Poland, 
and  the  Baltic  Provinces  of  Russia.  The  thirst  of  France  for 
glory  seems  still  unslaked,  and  to  it  has  been  added  a  thirst 
for  revenge.  The  break-up  of  the  Turkish  Empire  and  a 
scramble  for  its  spoils  are  always  in  prospect.  A  new  set  of 
disputes  is  also  arising  out  of  rival  claims  to  fields  for  coloni- 
sation in  Africa.  Similar  disputes  may  arise  about  other 
waste  places  of  the  earth,  as  Europe  becomes  overcrowded  and 
the  need  of  outlets  grows.  Though  religious  revolution  as  a 
source  of  war  has  lost  its  force,  it  seems  not  impossible  that 
social  revolution  may  take  its  place.  The  wars  to  which 
social  revolution  would  lead  would  be  likely,  it  is  true,  to  be 
civil  rather  than  international.     But  it  is  conceivable  that 

o 


194  QUESTIOJsS   OF   THE   DAY. 

some  military  power  born  of  social  revolution,  like  the  Spanish 
Intransigentes  or  the  French  Communists,  may  get  hold  of  a 
government  and  imitate  the  crusading  fury  of  the  Jacobins. 
Nor,  while  we  scan  the  horizon  of  the  civilised  world,  ought  it 
to  be  forgotten  that  there  is  a  world  outside,  of  which  China 
is  the  greatest  powder,  still  uncivilised,  which  may  give  birth 
to  military  force,  and  arm  itself  with  the  weapons  of  civilisa- 
tion. This  would  be  a  sufficient  reason  against  universal 
disarmament,  such  as  the  Peace  Society  preaches,  even  if  we 
could  dispense  with  the  soldier  as  an  upholder  of  order  and  an 
example  of  discipline  amidst  a  general  dissolution  of  authority. 

The  enormous  armaments  which  the  European  Powers  now 
have  on  foot  appear  to  make  war  at  some  time  certain,  since  it 
would  seem  that  the  tension  must  at  last  become  insufferable, 
and  that  somebody  must  break.  On  the  other  hand,  the  very 
apprehension  of  conflict  with  forces  so  vast  and  engines  of  war 
so  destructive  acts  as  a  strong  deterrent,  and  may  prevail  over 
international  hatred  and  other  incentives  to  war  till  financial 
deficit  enforces  reduction.  The  change  in  the  mode  of  warfare 
from  embattled  hosts  to  long-range  projectiles,  and  from  fleets 
such  as  fought  at  Trafalgar  to  turrets  and  rams,  is  probably  in 
favour  of  peace ;  not  only  because  it  makes  war  more  dreadful 
by  increasing  its  destructiveness  (which  indeed  may  be 
doubted),  but  because  by  taking  away  the  pride,  pomp,  and 
circumstance  of  the  battlefield,  it  robs  war  and  the  soldier's 
trade  of  much  of  their  hold  upon  the  imagination.  Waterloo 
or  Trafalgar  must  have  been  a  superb  and  enthralling  sight. 
Cannge  and  Actium  must  have  been  still  more  so.  But  Sedan, 
as  painted  by  Zola,  has  nothing  in  it  superb  or  enthralling. 
It  is  a  prosaic  scene  of  scientific  butchery.  As  to  the  "  plumed 
troop "  of  Life  Guards,  it  is  now  of  no  more  use  than  the 
Beefeaters,  and  is  probably  maintained  upon  the  same  grounds. 

By  the  introduction  of  the  new  and  long-range  w^eapons 
advantage  has  apparently  been  given  to  the  defence  over  the 
attack.  This  is  in  favour  of  the  invaded,  and  against  the 
invader.  It  does  not  seem,  however,  that  the  change  of 
weapons  has  diminished  the  ascendancy  of  discipline,  fighting 


THE   EMPIRE.  105 

as  a  skirmisher  needing  even  more  discipline  than  lighting  in 
line  or  in  column.  The  hope  of  political  enthusiasts,  that 
long-range  rifles  will  be  the  death  of  standing  armies,  is, 
therefore,  not  likely  to  be  fulfilled.  Still  less  is  the  hope 
excited  in  revolutionists  by  dynamite. 

Arbitration  has  now  been  so  often  employed  and  with  so 
much  success,  as  to  raise  very  high  the  hopes  of  its  advocates. 
Yet  apparently  there  are  still  limits  to  its  operation.  Keso- 
lute  ambition  or  fierce  passion  would  hardly  yield  to  it.  Nor 
can  it  be  expected  that  the  strong  will  always  forego  their 
prerogative  and  allow  every  question  to  be  settled  by  a  tribunal 
before  which  they  would  stand  on  a  level  with  the  weak. 

How  Great  Britain  would  now  face  a  great  war  is  a  serious 
question  for  British  statesmen,  especially  for  those  who  seek 
to  combine  a  policy  of  aggrandisement  abroad  with  socialistic 
radicalism  at  home.  Through  the  war  with  Napoleon  Great 
Britain  was  borne  by  the  firmness  of  an  aristocracy,  resolute  as 
that  of  Rome,  and,  though  narrow,  intensely  patriotic  in  its 
way,  which  unflinchingly  supported  the  Government  through 
all  reverses  and  placed  at  its  command  the  entire  resources  of 
the  nation.  In  place  of  this  aristocracy  we  have  now  a 
democracy  which,  in  the  Crimean  war,  upset  the  Government 
upon  the  first  reverse;  the  artisan  masses  of  which  are  as 
destitute  of  patriotism  as  it  is  possible  for  the  natives  of  any 
country  to  be;  and  which  refuses  to  pay  any  additional  taxes, 
insisting,  when  naval  expenditure  is  required  for  national 
safety,  that  the  whole  burden  shall  be  thrown  on  income  tax 
and  succession  duty  paid  by  a  small  class.  The  Civis  Romanus 
policy,  besides  being  in  a  world  no  longer  suited  to  it,  requires, 
to  carry  it  on,  a  Roman  Senate. 


WOMAN  SUFFRAGE. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE. 

It  is  not  necessary,  in  entering  upon  tliis  question,  to  dilate 
on  its  sentimental  side.  Nothing  can  add  force  or  tenderness 
to  the  names  of  wife  and  home.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  man 
cannot  withhold  from  woman  anything  that  is  good  for  her,  or 
give  her  anything  that  is  bad  for  her,  Avithout  injuring  himself 
and  their  children  in  the  same  measure. 

Shall  man  make  over  to  woman  half  of  the  sovereign  power 
which  has  hitherto  been  his,  and  which,  if  he  chooses,  he  can 
keep?     This  is  the  question  broadly  stated.     AVoman,  in  mak- 
ing the  demand,  shows  confidence  in  man's  affection.     The  rule 
by  which  the  question  is  to  be  settled  is  the  joint  interest 
which  the  two  sexes  have  in  good  government,  not  any  abstract 
claim  of  right.     For  an  abstract  claim  of  right  there  appears 
to  be  no  foundation.     Power  which  is  natural  carries  with  it 
right,  while    it   is    subject   to   the    restraints    of    conscience. 
Weakness  cannot  be  said  to  have  a  right  to  artificial  power, 
though  the  concession  of  such  power  within  reasonable  limits 
may  be  not  only  kind  but  wise,  just,  and  beneficial  to  humanity 
and  civilisation.     That  to  which  every  member   of   a   com- 
munity, whether  man,  woman,  or  child,  whether  white  or  black, 
whether  above  or  below  the  age  of  twenty-one,  has  a  right,  is 
the  largest  attainable  measure  of  good  government.     If  this 
or   any  other  political  change  would  be  conducive  to  good 
government,  the  whole  community  has  a  right  to  it;  if  it  would 
not,  the  whole  community,  including  the  women,  or   those, 
whoever  they  may  be,  whom   it  is  proposed  to  enfranchise, 
have   a  right  to  a   refusal  of   the  change.     The  number  of 
women  who  spontaneously  sought  the  change  appears  to  have 
been  small.     Great  efforts  and  vehement  appeals  on  the  part  of 

199 


200  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

the  ladies  with  whom  the  movement  originated  were  required 
to  set  any  considerable  part  of  the  sex  in  motion.  This  is 
important  as  an  indication  both  of  the  absence  of  any  great 
grievance  and  of  the  unbiassed  judgment  of  the  sex  with  regard 
to  its  own  interests.  But  were  the  demand  more  spontaneous 
and  general  it  would  still  be  incumbent  on  the  present  holders 
of  power  before  abdicating  to  consider  whether  in  the  common 
interest  their  abdication  was  to  be  desired. 

As  to  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  no  question  is  raised;  they 
may  be  perfectly  equal  though  their  spheres  are  different,  that 
of  the  man  being  public  life,  that  of  the  woman  the  home. 
Nor  is  there  any  occasion  for  pitting  male  or  female  gifts  or 
qualities  against  each  other.  Supposing  woman  even  to  be 
superior,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  field  of  her  superiority  is 
public  life. 

That  the  tendency  of  civilisation  has  been  to  elevate  woman 
is  true.  But  elevation  is  a  different  thing  from  assimilation 
to  man.  We  are  told,  not  so  much  by  women,  perhaps,  as  by 
their  champions,  that  the  time  for  protection  and  chivalry  has 
past  and  the  time  for  justice  has  come.  But  it  is  not  made 
evident  that  the  bare  justice,  which  regulates  the  relation 
between  man  and  man,  would  suit  the  relation  between  man 
and  woman,  or  that  chivalry  and  protection  on  the  one  side, 
with  the  corresponding  recognition  of  them  on  the  other,  do 
not  in  this  case  constitute  justice. 

The  woman  suffrage  movement  is  a  part  of  a  general 
attempt  to  change  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  to  set 
woman  free  from  what  hitherto  have  been  considered  the  limi- 
tations of  her  sex,  and  make  her  the  competitor  instead  of  the 
helpmate  of  man.^  Women  are  forcing  their  way  into  the  male 
professions,  including  that  of  law,  into  the  dissecting-room,  in 
company  with  the  male  students,  into  male  places  of  educa- 
tion, and  into  the  smoking-room.  Some  of  them  have  lately 
taken  to  riding  astride.  From  England  we  hear  that  ladies 
have  been  undergoing  military  drill;  from  New  York  that  they 

1  See  Mrs.  E.  Lynn  Linton  on  women  as  social  insurgents  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  of  October,  1891. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  ,  201 

have  been  emulating  the  training  of  male  athletes  and  the 
horsemanship  of  the  steeplechaser.  We  are  reminded  of  the 
Roman  ladies  under  the  Empire  who  when  other  excitement 
had  been  exhausted  took  to  that  of  the  gladiatorial  school. 

The  old  foundations  of  authority  are  shaken  by  the  collapse 
of  beliefs  on  which  social  order  as  well  as  personal  morality 
has  hitherto  rested,  and  by  the  political  disturbance  attending 
the  advent  of  democracy.  We  are  in  the  ferment  of  a  revolu- 
tionary age,  and  of  that  ferment  the  Revolt  of  Woman,  as  one 
of  the  leaders  of  the  movement  called  it,  is  a  part. 

Among  the  features  of  a  revolutionary  era  is  the  prevalence 
of  a  feeble  facility  of  abdication.  The  holders  of  power,  how- 
ever natural  and  legitimate,  are  too  ready  to  resign  it  on  the 
first  demand.  They  do  not  take  time  to  consider  whether  their 
power  is  rightful  or  not,  whether  it  has  or  has  not  on  the 
whole  been  used  for  good,  whether,  if  in  any  case  it  has  not 
been  used  for  good,  they  cannot  amend  their  course,  or  whether 
it  is  likely  to  be  better  employed  by  those  to  whom  they  are 
called  upon  to  transfer  it.  The  nerves  of  authority  are  shaken 
by  the  failure  of  conviction.  It  is  an  inherent  consequence 
of  the  demagogic  system  that  every  demand  for  the  suffrage, 
reasonable  or  unreasonable,  should  prevail  as  soon  as  it  shows' 
strength,  because  the  politician  is  afraid  by  opposition  to  make 
an  enemy  of  the  coming  vote. 

It  is  evident  that  sexual  revolution  must  have  its  limita- 
tions if  the  human  race  is  to  continue.  There  are  some  land- 
marks of  nature  which  cannot  be  removed,  and  the  females  of 
every  species  must  be  the  organs  of  its  perpetuation.  Women 
must  bear  and  nurse  children;  and  if  they  do  this,  it  is  impos- 
sible that  they  should  compete  with  men  in  occupations  which 
demand  complete  devotion  as  well  as  superior  strength  of 
muscle  or  brain.  There  appears  to  be  a  tendency  among  the 
leaders  of  the  Revolt  of  Woman  to  disparage  matrimony  as  a 
bondage,  and  the  rearing'  of  children  as  an  aim  too  low  for  an 
intellectual  being.  Such  ideas  are  not  likely  to  spread  widely, 
or  they  would  threaten  the  life  of  the  race.  They  prevail 
chiefly  in  the  highly  educated  and  sentimental  classes,  not  in 


202  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

tlie  homes  of  labour.  Nature,  it  may  be  said,  will  look  to  this 
and  in  the  end  vindicate  her  own  law.  Ko  doubt  she  will,  yet 
the  revolt  against  her  may  cost  us  dear. 

If  it  is  a  question  of  right,  children  have  their  rights  as  well 
as  women.  They  have  not  less  right  to  motherly  care  than 
they  and  their  mother  have  to  being  fed  by  the  husband's 
labour. 

At  present  the  demand  in  England  is  only  for  the  enfran- 
chisement of  spinsters  and  widows.  But  this  limitation,  while 
it  betrays  a  consciousness  that  there  would  be  danger  to  the 
family  in  the  full  measure,  is  understood  to  be  merely  a 
stroke  of  tactics.  Widow  and  spinster  suffrage  is  the  thin 
edge  of  the  wedge.  From  the  political  point  of  view  there 
would  be  manifest  absurdity  and  wrong  in  making  marriage 
politically  penal,  and  excluding  from  the  franchise  the  very 
women  who  are  commonly  held  to  be  best  discharging  the 
duties  of  their  sex,  and  would  be  likely  to  be  its  fairest 
representatives.  Already  the  thoroughgoing  section  of  the 
party  repudiates  the  limitation.  The  spinster  and  widow  vote 
would  be  an  irresistible  lever  whenever  political  parties  were 
nearly  balanced.  When  the  suffrage  had  been  conceded  to  all 
women,  as  the  women  slightly  outnumber  the  men,  and  many 
of  the  men,  sailors,  for  example,  or  men  employed  on  railways, 
or  in  itinerant  callings,  could  not  go  to  the  poll,  the  woman's 
vote  would  preponderate,  and  government,  if  it  was  in  unison 
with  the  votes,  would  be  more  female  than  male.  Nor  is  it  by 
the  leaders  and  chief  authors  of  the  movement  intended  that 
we  should  stop  here.  The  woman  of  the  political  platform 
does  not  limit  her  ambition  to  a  vote.  She  wants  to  sit  in 
Parliament  or  in  Congress.  When  she  gains  her  first  point 
she  will  have  practically  established  her  claim  to  the  next; 
those  who  are  qualified  to  give  a  mandate,  she  will  say,  are 
qualified  to  bear  it;  those  who  are  qualified  to  decide  prin- 
ciples of  legislation  are  qualified  to  legislate;  those  who  are 
qualified  to  dictate  a  policy  are  qualified  to  carry  it  into  effect. 
In  New  Zealand,  having  gained  the  franchise,  she  has  already 
preferred  the  further  claim.     It  might  shock  our  prejudices  at 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  203 

lii'st  to  see  a  woman  taking  part  in  a  Parliamentary  debate. 
It  shocks  our  prejudices  at  first  to  see  lier  taking  part  in  a 
faction  fight,  mounting  the  pulpit,  or  thundering  from  a  plat- 
form, as  well  as  to  see  her  in  half  male  attire,  or  riding  in 
man's  fashion.  Established  sentiment  and  old  ideas  of  deli- 
cacy have  been  already  set  aside.  The  female  aspirant  to  a 
seat  in  Parliament  or  Congress,  and  to  a  place  in  the  Cabinet, 
will  have,  therefore,  little  difficulty  in  proving  her  claim. 
She  will  have  no  difficulty  whatever  in  enforcing  it.  That, 
the  woman's  vote  will  do  for  her.  A  tenth  part  of  the 
woman's  vote  might  do  it  for  her  if  the  parties  were  nearly 
balanced  and  the  politicians  were  alarmed.  Politics  under  the 
party  system  are  a  demagogic  auction,  and  an  inevitable  slide 
down  liill.  In  the  United  States,  where  all  qualifications  for 
the  suffrage  other  than  that  of  simple  citizenship  have  been 
abolished  or  practically  nullified,  female  suffrage,  like  male 
suffrage,  would  no  doubt  be  universal.  That  the  change  thus 
presents  itself  at  once  in  its  full  exteHt  may  partly  account  for 
the  general  conservatism  of  the  American  people  on  this  sub- 
ject. But  there  is  also  the  safeguard  of  the  special  process 
which  is  required  in  the  States  as  well  as  in  the  Federation 
for  amendments  of  the  Constitution,  and  which  enforces  the 
submission  of  the  question  to  a  constituency  beyond  the  range 
of  the  arts  and  influences  to  which  individual  legislators  are 
apt  to  yield. 

Political  power  has  hitherto  been  exercised  by  the  male  sex ; 
not  because  man  has  been  a  tyrannical  usurper  and  has  bnitally 
thrust  his  weaker  partner  out  of  lier  rights,  but  in  the  course 
of  nature,  because  man  alone  could  uphold  government  and 
enforce  the  law.  Let  the  edifice  of  law  be  as  moral  and  as  intel- 
lectual as  you  will,  its  foundation  is  the  force  of  tin;  com- 
munity, and  the  force  of  tlie  community  is  male.  Women 
have  not  yet  thought  of  claiming  the  employment  of  policemen, 
nor  of  ]")etitioning  that  they  may  be  bound  to  answer  to  the 
call  of  the  slicriff  when  he  summons  the  citizens  to  put  down 
disorder.  This  fundamental  fact  that  law  rests  on  public  force 
may  be  hidden  from  sight  for  the  moment  by  the  clouds  of 


204  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

emotional  rlietoric,  but  it  will  assert  itself  in  the  end.  Laws 
passed  by  tlie  woman's  vote  will  not  be  felt  to  have  force  behind 
them.  Women  are  the  great  prohibitionists,  having  only  too 
strong  inducements,  many  of  them,  to  support  any  supjjosed 
antidote  to  drunkenness,  and  not  seeing  that  the  taste  of  a 
man  engaged  in  heavy  labour  and  exposed  to  the  weather  for 
the  stimulus  of  Avine  or  beer  may  be  as  natural  as  the  taste  of 
his  home-keeping  partner  for  the  stimulus  of  tea.  With 
woman  suffrage  we  should  have  Prohibition.  Prohibitionists 
advocate  woman  suffrage  on  that  account.  Behind  prohibition 
of  strong  drinks  begins  to  loom  prohibition  of  tobacco.  We 
have  had  proposals  from  women  to  extend  capital  punishment 
to  cases  of  outrage  on  their  sex.  Would  the  stronger  sex  obey 
such  laws  when  it  was  known  that  they  were  enacted  by  the 
weaker?  Would  it  obey  any  laws  manifestly  carried  by  the 
female  vote  in  the  interest  of  the  women  against  that  of 
the  men?  If  it  would  not,  the  result  would  be  contempt  for 
the  law  and  anarchy,  which  would  not  be  likely  to  enure 
to  the  advantage  of  the  weak.  Man  would  be  tempted  to  resist 
woman's  government  when  it  galled  him,  not  only  by  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  strength,  but  by  his  pride,  which  would  make 
itself  heard  in  the  end,  though  its  voice  for  a  time  might  be 
stifled  by  sentimental  declamation.  "In  muscle,"  says  the 
Report  of  Mr.  Blair's  Committee  of  the  United  States  Senate 
in  1889,  "woman  is  inferior  to  man.  But  muscle  has  nothing 
to  do  with  legislation  or  government.  In  intellect  she  is 
man's  equal,  in  character  she  is,  by  his  own  admission,  his 
superior  and  constitutes  the  angelic  portion  of  humanity." 
We  have  seen  reason  for  thinking  that  muscle  has  something 
to  do,  if  not  with  the  acts  of  legislatures  or  governments,  with 
that  v/hich  gives  those  acts  their  force.  Mr.  Blair  might  have 
felt  this  if,  at  the  time  of  the  strike,  he  had  been  at  Chicago. 

In  Dahomey  there  are  female  warriors.  There  may  have 
been  Amazons  in  primitive  times.  But  in  the  civilised  world 
the  duty  of  defending  the  country  in  war  falls  on  the  male  sex 
alone,  and  it  would  seem  that  there  ought  to  be  some  connection 
between  that  duty  and  political  power.     To  this  it  is  answered 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  205 

that  not  all  men  perform  the  duty,  and  that  women  as  well  as 
men  contribute  as  taxpayers  to  the  support  of  the  army.  In 
some  countries,  as  in  Germany,  all  men  of  military  age  are, 
and  in  every  country  they  ought  to  be,  liable  to  military 
service.  But  everywhere  the  responsibility  rests  on  the  men, 
Avlio  would  have  to  meet  the  necessity  if  it  arose.  That  some 
men  are  old  or  disqualitied  for  arms  signifies  nothing;  political 
rules  must  be  general  and  disregard  exceptions.  The  women, 
it  is  said,  or  such  of  them  as  have  property  of  their  own,  con- 
tribute to  the  military  expenses.  But  so  do  the  men,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  male  duty  of  personal  service.  Nor  is  the  plea  that 
they  send  their  husbands  and  sons  much  to  the  purpose  when 
the  question  is  as  to  their  own  qualifications  for  serving  in  war. 

At  the  same  time  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  think  that  female 
rulers  have  been  averse  from  war,  and  that  if  the  power  were 
in  female  hands  war  would  be  no  more.  Women  are  apt  to  be 
warlike  because  their  responsibility  is  leos.  In  the  Southern 
States  at  the  time  of  Secession  no  partisans  of  the  war  were 
fiercer  than  the  women.  Few  male  rulers  have  been  more 
bellicose  than  Catherine  of  Russia,  Elizabeth  Queen  of  Spain 
(the  Termagant,  as  she  was  called),  Maria  Theresa  of  Austria, 
Madame  de  Pompadour,  and  the  Empress  Eugenie.  Nor  is  it 
unlikely  that  female  sentiment  might  be  in  favour  of  some  war 
when  male  sentiment. or  prudence  was  against  it.  French 
women  might  have  voted  for  a  crusade  in  aid  of  the  Pope. 
English  women  might  have  voted  for  armed  intervention  in 
favour  of  the  Queen  of  Naples,  wliose  heroism  touclied  their 
imaginations  at  the  time.  Would  the  men  obey?  AVould  they 
shoulder  their  muskets  and  march  or  bid  the  army  march? 
They  would  not;  and  here  again  law  and  government  would 
break  down. 

Besides,  the  transfer  of  power  from  the  military  to  the 
unmilitary  sex  involves  a  change  in  the  character  of  a  nation. 
It  involves,  in  short,  national  emasculation.  What  would  be 
the  fate  of  a  community  in  some  dire  extremity  if  it  were 
largely  ruled  by  its  women?  Philanthropy,  thcosophy,  and 
Utopianism    have   not   yet   triumphed.      Tliis    is   tlie  age  of 


206  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Bismarck,  of  the  Franco-Prussian  War,  of  the  War  of  Seces- 
sion. How  woukl  the  North  have  fared  in  its  conflict  with  the 
South  if,  at  each  turn  of  the  wavering  and  desperate  struggle, 
it  had  been  swayed  by  the  emotions  of  its  women?  One  of 
the  ladies  whose  evidence  was  taken  before  Mr.  Blair's  Com- 
mittee, admitted  that,  in  the  days  of  force,  when  women  needed 
the  protection  of  man,  male  government  may  have  been  justi- 
fiable; but  these,  she  said,  were  piping  times  of  peace.  Pij)ing 
times  of  peace,  when  America  is  paying  the  pension  list  of  an 
enormous  war  and  Europe  has  millions  of  men  in  arms! 
Woman  does  not  in  civilised  countries  need  the  protection  of 
the  individual  man  except  as  policeman  or  escort.  But  she 
does  need,  or  may  at  any  time  need,  the  armed  protection  of 
the  male  sex  as  a  whole. 

We  have  had  successive  extensions  of  that  which  is  called 
liberty,  but  ought,  if  we  would  think  clearly,  to  be  called 
political  power;  for  a  man  may  have  liberty  without  a  vote 
and  a  vote  without  liberty.  But  hitherto  tiie  changes,  though 
some  of  them  have  been  blind  and  dangerous  enough,  have 
imperilled  only  the  State.  The  change  now  proposed  vitally 
affects  the  family,  which,  until  the  Socialists  have  their  way, 
will  be  of  fully  as  much  consequence  to  us  as  the  State.  The 
family  is  in  fact  the  grand  issue.  The  solidarity  of  the  family 
it  is  which  the  various  movements  for  what  is  called  the 
emancipation  of  women  tend  collectively  to  subvert.  It  is 
easy  to  draw  ideal  pictures  of  husband  and  wife  agreeing  to 
differ  on  political  questions,  going  at  elections  to  opposite 
committee -rooms,  perhaps  speaking  on  opposite  platforms, 
voting  on  opposite  sides,  and  then  returning  to  a  blissful 
hearth,  Avith  harmony  and  affection  unimpaired.  This  ideal 
might  be  realised  in  the  case  of  such  a  couj)le  as  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
John  Stuart  jNIill.  But  Avhat  are  the  effects  of  a  faction  fight 
on  the  tempers  of  ordinary  mortals?  In  America  at  the  time 
of  the  Civil  War  would  unbroken  harmony  have  prevailed 
between  a  Unionist  husband  and  a  Secessionist  wife?  Would 
unbroken  harmony  prevail  between  a  Unionist  husband  and  a 
Gladstonian  wife  at  the  present  day  ? 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  207 

Hitlierto  the  family  lias  been  a  unit  represented  in  the  State 
by  its  head,  and  whatever  storms  may  have  raged  in  the  com 
monwealth,  the  peace  and  order  of  the  home  have  remained 
usually  undisturbed.  A  change  which  throws  the  family  into 
the  political  caldron  calls  surely  for  special  consideration.  In 
political  and  economical  discussion  our  attention  is  commonly 
turned  to  wealth,  education,  or  some  factor  of  our  well-being 
which  is  increased  or  diminished  by  government  or  legislation. 
We  seldom  think  so  distinctly  as  we  ought  how  large  a  measure 
of  happiness  as  well  as  of  excellence  depends  upon  affection. 
A  man  who  prized  his  home  would  probably  say  that  if  it  was 
thought  fit  that  his  wife  should  have  the  vote  instead  of 
himself,  she  might  have  it,  but  that  he  protested  against  any 
proposal  to  give  the  family  more  than  one  vote. 

Caution  is  the  more  necessary  since  it  is  clear  that  party  has 
laid  hold  of  this  question.  Each  party,  or  a  section  of  each 
party  in  England,  fancies  that  it  would  gain  by  the  change. 
Some  Conservatives  believe  that  the  nature  of  woman  is  con- 
servative, and  that  she  would  vote  under  the  influence  of 
traditional  sentiment,  perhaps  also  under  that  of  her  priest. 
The  late  leader  of  the  Conservatives  in  England  was  in  favour 
of  enfranchising  the  women,  as  he  was  in  favour  of  enfranchis- 
ing the  proletariat,  with  the  same  expectation  of  votes.  But 
Conservatives  who  play  this  game  should  remember  that  the 
conservative  woman  as  a  rule  is  probably  feminine  and  likely 
to  stay  at  home,  while  the  radical  woman  is  pretty  sure  to  go 
forth  rejoicing  to  the  fray.  Nor  would  the  clerical  inflnence 
be  all  on  one  side.  Every  Catholic  Irishwoman  would  be 
brought  to  the  poll  by  the  priest.  Assuredly  the  female  char- 
acter is  not  unsusceptible  of  revolutionary  violence.  France 
saw  the  Mcenads  of  the  Kevolution,  and  has  had  her  Louise 
Michel.  In  New  York  a  female  enthusiast  has  been  heard 
inciting  the  destitute  to  armed  violence  and  public  rapine. 
However  this  may  be,  when  party  lays  its  hand  on  the  home, 
those  who  care  for  the  home  more  than  for  party  receive  a 
warning  to  be  on  their  guard. 

Previous  extensions  of  the  suffrage  have  been  to  an  uurepre- 


208  QUESTIONS  OF   THE    DAY. 

sented  class,  and  a  class  which  might  plead  that  its  special 
interest  would  suffer  by  Avant  of  representation,  though  pos- 
sibly in  some  cases  those  interests  were  likely  to  suffer  as  much 
by  the  influence  of  enfranchised  ignorance  on  government  as 
by  any  class  bias.  But  women  are  not  a  class,  they  are  a  sex. 
Their  class  interests  throughout  the  scale  are  identical  Avith 
those  of  the  man,  and  are  effectually  represented  by  the  male 
vote.  It  would  probably  be  impossible  to  devise  a  case  in 
which  a  legislature  dealing  with  female  interests  in  regard  to 
property,  taxation,  or  any  other  subject,  could  be  misled  by 
motives  of  class. 

If  property  held  by  women  is  taxed  without  being  repre- 
sented, so  is  that  held  by  men,  in  the  United  States  absolutely, 
and  in  England,  saving  only  the  trifling  amount  of  property 
still  required,  directly  or  indirectly,  as  a  qualification  for  the 
suffrage. 

Have  women  as  a  sex  any  wrongs  which  male  legislatures 
cannot  be  expected  to  redress,  so  that  in  order  to  obtain  justice 
it  is  necessary  that  there  shall  be  an  abdication  by  man  of  the 
sovereign  power?  If  there  are,  whether  in  England  or  the 
United  States,  let  them  be  named.  ISTamed  hitherto  they  have 
not  been.  The  law  regarding  the  property  of  married  women 
has  been  so  far  reformed  in  the  interests  of  the  wife,  that, 
instead  of  being  unduly  favourable  to  the  husband,  it  seems 
rather  inspired  by  mistrust  of  him.  The  practice  is  still  more 
so.  It  has  become  the  custom  to  tie  up  a  woman's  property 
on  marriage  so  that  she  shall  not  be  able,  even  if  she  is  so 
inclined,  to  make  provision  for  her  husband,  in  case  he  sur- 
vives her,  in  old  age,  and  save  him  from  the  necessity  of 
receiving  alms  from  his  own  children.  The  lawyers  naturally 
are  active  in  the  work  which  multiplies  legal  relations  and 
interests.  About  everything  has  been  done  which  civil  legis- 
lation could  do  to  impress  the  wife  with  the  belief  that  her 
interest  and  that  of  her  husband  are  not  only  separate  but 
adverse;  that  she  does  not  leave  her  father's  home  when  she  is 
married;  that  her  husband  is  not  one  flesh  with  her;  and  that 
all  her  relations  by  blood  are  nearer  to  her,  in  interest  at  all 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  209 

events,  than  the  man  on  whose  breast  she  lays  her  head. 
Matrimonial  superstition  has  been  effectually  rebuked  by 
enabling  husband  and  wife  to  sue  each  other.  The  laws  of 
Massachusetts  discriminate  in  favour  of  women  by  exempting 
unmarried  women  of  small  estate  from  taxation;  by  allowing 
women  and  not  men  to  acquire  a  settlement  without  paying  a 
tax;  by  compelling  husbands  to  support  their  wives,  but 
exempting  the  wife,  even  when  rich,  from  supporting  an 
indigent  husband;  by  making  men  liable  for  debts  of  wives, 
and  not  vice  versa.^  In  the  State  of  New  York  a  husband 
cannot  dispose  of  his  wife's  dower  in  his  lands  without  her 
consent,  but  the  wife  can,  without  her  husband's  consent,  dis- 
pose of  all  her  property ;  a  husband  can  be  made  to  pay  for 
necessaries  supplied  to  a  wife,  a  wife  cannot  be  made  to  pay 
for  necessaries  supplied  to  a  husband;  a  Avife's  dower-right 
cannot  be  divested  by  a  will,  but  a  wife  can  will  away  all  her 
property  without  leaving  provision  for  her  husband;  women 
are  privileged  in  cases  of  execution  for  debt;  women  are  sub- 
stantially exempt  from  arrest  in  all  civil  cases;  while  the 
factory  laws  and  other  laws  abound  in  exceptional  protection 
for  women.  Legal  reformers  are  able  to  boast  that  they  have 
"emancipated  woman  from  the  domination  of  her  husband." 
They  must  not  forget  that  the  domination  carries  with  it 
maintenance  and  protection  which  will  not  be  given  without 
return.  Make  the  marriage  contract  too  onerous  to  the  man, 
and  he  in  his  turn  will  some  day  begin  to  think  of  emancipa- 
tion. If  he  does  he  is  the  stronger.  Nothing  can  alter  that 
fact  or  its  practical  significance  in  the  long  run.  Of  this  the 
leaders  of  the  Revolt  of  Woman  will  do  well  to  take  note. 

That  the  administration  of  the  law  has  been  unfavourable 
to  women,  few  will  contend.  In  jury  cases,  at  least,  the  diffi- 
culty is  not  for  women  to  get  justice  against  men,  but  for  men 
to  get  justice  against  women.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the 
introduction  of  women  into  the  jury-box,  for  which  woman- 
suffragists  contend,  could  make  juries  more  partial  to  women 

1  See  Minority  Report  of  Mr.  Blair's  Committee  of  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  February,  1889,  p.  14. 


210  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

tlian  they  are ;  if  it  did,  the  failure  of  justice  would  be  mon- 
strous indeed.  In  criminal  cases  mercy  has  been  shown  to  the 
woman.  "Since  I  have  been  in  Parliament,"  said  John 
Bright,  "  I  think  I  could  sj^ecify  nearly  a  score  of  instances  in 
which  the  lives  of  women  would  be  spared  where  the  lives  of 
men  would  be  taken."  Can  it  be  believed  that  the  efforts 
which  have  been  made  to  save  Mrs.  May  brick  from  punishment 
would  have  been  made  in  favour  of  a  husband  convicted  of  the 
murder  of  his  wife?  There  is  no  reason  for  this  partiality 
except  one  which  implies  a  radical  difference  between  the  sexes 
and  the  willingness  of  the  weaker  sex  to  accept  the  protection 
of  the  stronger.  Nor  will  the  privilege  long  survive  the  ground 
of  it;  women  cannot  have  both  equality  and  privilege. 

Does  the  grievance  consist  in  any  bar  to  the  competition  of 
women  with  men  in  the  professions  or  trades?  Such  bars  have 
by  male  legislation  been  largely  removed.  We  have  female 
doctors  of  medicine  everywhere,  and  if  their  practice  is  limited, 
it  is  because  women  themselves  in  the  graver  cases  seem  still 
to  put  more  confidence  in  men.  Women  are  being  admitted  to 
the  law.  To  their  addressing  themselves  to  the  feelings  of 
juries  there  seems  to  be  an  objection  apart  from  delicacy,  if 
justice  is  the  object  of  courts.  They  have  been  admitted  into 
male  universities,  we  shall  presently  see  with  what  effect  on 
the  masculine  character  of  the  system,  while,  in  spite  of  the 
principle  on  which  coeducation  is  based,  female  colleges  are 
not  yet  thrown  open  to  men.  They  have  got  the  school- 
teacherships  largely  into  their  hands;  with  doubtful  benefit, 
whatever  theorists  may  say,  to  the  characters  and  manners  of 
the  boys.  Government  clerkships  and  offices  of  all  kinds  are 
now  filled  with  women,  who  are  thus  made  independent  of 
marriage,  though  this  cannot  be  done  without  at  the  same  time 
withdrawing  employment  from  men  who  might  have  main- 
tained women  as  their  wives.  It  is  complained  that  female 
workers  are  underpaid,  and  female  claimants  of  the  franchise 
say  that  if  they  had  power,  they  would  legislate  so  as  to  raise 
woman's  wages.  Legislation  of  this  kind  would  require  sup- 
plementary enactments  forbidding  employers  and  capital  to  go 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  211 

out  of  the  trade.  But  are  women  underpaid?  Are  they  paid 
less  than  the  men  when  their  work  is  of  equal  value?  It  may 
be  that  in  some  cases  custom  has  been  unjust  to  them,  as  it 
often  is  to  male  workers  also.  This  time  will  redress.  It  is 
only  the  lighter  trades  that  women  can  ply,  and  a  needlewoman 
can  hardly  expect  to  be  paid  like  an  engine-driver  or  a  steve- 
dore. In  some  trades  certain  continuance  is  an  element  of 
value,  and  certain  continuance  is  impossible  for  woman  unless 
she  renounces  marriage.  Fashionable  dressmakers,  female 
artists,  singers,  and  actresses  are  not  underj)aid.  The  gains 
of  prima  donnas  are  enormous ;  their  exactions  are  notorious, 
and  they  stint  without  compunction  the  inferior  performers  of 
their  own  sex. 

A  proof  of  man's  injustice  to  woman  commonly  cited  was 
th(^  difference  made  in  the  treatment  of  the  two  sexes  in 
regard  to  infidelity.  The  law  can  hardly  now  be  said  to  be 
unjust;  that  the  social  penalty  should  be  the  same  in  both  cases 
is  not  to  be  expected,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  offence  is 
not  the  same.  The  sin  of  the  woman  is  a  sin  not  only  against 
her  partner,  but  against  the  family,  into  whicli  she  brings  an 
adulterine  child.  A  pointsman  and  the  man  who  tends  a 
furnace  may  alike  fall  asleep  at  their  posts  without  any 
difference  in  their  moral  guilt,  but  one  lets  a  fire  go  out,  and 
the  other  wrecks  a  train. 

All  the  legislation  and  all  the  language  on  the  subject  of 
seduction  assume  that  the  blame  rests  entirely  on  the  man, 
thougli  there  are  many  cases  in  which  he  is  more  the  seduced 
than  the  seducer,  and  in  no  case  where  the  woman  is  grown 
up  and  is  consenting  can  the  guilt  be  wholly  on  one  side. 
To  assume  that  the  guilt  is  wholly  on  one  side  and  that  tlie 
woman,  however  freely  slie  consents,  must  be  blameless,  is  to 
subvert  the  safeguard  of  honour  in  the  female  breast. 

Mr.  Blair's  lleport  indeed  proclaims  that  "without  the  exer- 
cise of  the  natural  and  inalienable  right  of  suffrage  neither 
life,  liberty,  nor  property  can  be  secured."  If  by  liberty  is 
meant  the  exercise  of  political  power,  that  part  of  the  allega- 
tion is  undeniably  true.     To  say  that  neither  life  nor  property 


212  qup:stions  of  the  day. 

can  be  secure  without  the  suffrage  woukl  be  to  say  that  no 
security  for  life  or  property  has  existed  in  most  of  the  coun- 
tries of  Europe  till  within  the  last  half  century,  nor  for  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  even  in  England.  To  the  ordinary 
observer  it  appears  not  only  that  the  lives,  liberties,  and 
properties  of  American  women  are  secure,  but  that  they  are 
more  secure,  if  anything,  than  those  of  the  men;  and  that  the 
attitude  of  men  in  the  United  States  toward  women  is  rather 
that  of  subjection  than  that  of  domination.  "Actual  and 
practical  slavery,"  which  one  of  the  ladies  who  gives  evidence 
declares  to  be  the  condition  of  woman  without  the  ballot,  has 
certainly  in  the  case  of  the  American  slave  disguised  itself  in 
very  deceptive  forms.  "ISTo  one,"  says  another  lady,  "has 
denied  to  women  the  right  of  burial,  and  in  that  one  sad 
necessity  of  human  life  they  stand  on  an  equal  footing  with 
men."  Such  language  seems  to  mock  our  understandings. 
Comparisons  of  the  condition  of  woman  denied  the  suffrage 
with  that  of  the  Negro  in  the  South,  have  often  been  made, 
and  in  this  Report  we  are  told  that  the  exclusion  of  women 
from  a  convention  "constituted  the  startling  revelation  of  a 
real  subjection  of  woman  to  man  world-wide  and  in  many 
respects  as  complete  and  galling,  when  analysed  and  duly  con- 
sidered by  its  victims,  as  that  of  the  Negro  to  his  master." 
The  Negro,  nevertheless,  would  not  have  been  sorry  to  change 
conditions.  The  papers  the  other  day  gave  an  account  of  a 
raid  made  upon  a  saloon  by  a  party  of  women  in  masks,  who 
beat  the  proprietor  with  clubs.  Several  such  acts  of  violence 
on  the  part  of  women  have  been  recorded;  but  they  are  com- 
mitted apparently  not  only  with  impunity  but  with  general 
approbation.  Resistance  to  them  appeal's  to  be  proscribed. 
American  women,  also,  seem  to  use  the  cowhide,  whenever 
they  think  fit,  to  avenge  their  personal  wrongs.  These  are  not 
practices  in  which  the  Negro  was  allowed  to  indulge  toward 
his  master  before  emancipation,  or  in  which  he  has  even  been 
allowed  to  indulge  since.  If  the  men  of  the  United  States 
were  called  to  account  for  their  treatment  of  the  women,  and 
the  women  at  tlie  same  time  for  the  performance  of  their  special 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  213 

duty  to  the  race,  it  seems  doubtful,  at  least  supposing  that 
American  writers  on  these  subjects  tell  the  truth,  whether 
before  an  impartial  tribunal  judgment  would  go  against  the 
men. 

Against  wife-beating,  or  cruelty  of  any  sort  to  wives,  which 
is  commonly  confined  to  the  dregs  of  humanity,  the  law  seems 
now  severe  enough;  if  it  were  more  tlian  severe  enough  it 
would  be  in  danger  of  becoming  a  dead  letter.  Male  brutality 
finds  vent  in  bodily  outrage,  which  can  be  reached  by  law. 
The  bad  wife  can  make  her  husband's  home  miserable  by  vexa- 
tions which  no  law  can  reach.  Many  years  ago  an  English 
clergyman  was  convicted  of  the  murder  of  his  wife,  but  his 
sentence  was  commuted  when  it  was  learned  what  his  life  had 
been.  A  man  in  England  narrowly  escaped  imprisonment  as 
a  felon  on  a  false  charge  of  uttering  base  coin,  cast  on  him  by 
the  machinations  of  a  perfidious  wife  who  wanted  to  live  with 
her  paramour.  Law  could  have  done  nothing  in  the  first  case, 
practically  could  do  nothing  in  the  second.  Children  are  less 
able  to  make  their  wrongs  known  than  are  women,  yet  cases 
not  seldom  come  to  light  of  cruel  ill-treatment  of  children  by 
women,  especially  by  step-motliers.  These  cases,  like  those 
of  wife-beating,  are  hideous.  We  punish  the  criminals  when 
we  can,  but  we  do  not  propose  to  alter  domestic  relations.  We 
trust,  and  in  the  immense  majority  of  cases  with  reason,  to 
affection,  which  is  stronger  than  law.  That  affection  is 
stronger  than  law  is  a  fact  often  forgotten  in  dealing  with 
these  questions.  It  seems  to  be  thought  that  the  Statute  Book 
is  all.  Nothing  in  the  Statute  Book,  it  has  been  truly  said, 
prevents  the  most  courteous  of  hosts  from  turning  his  guests 
out  of  his  house  at  midnight  in  a  storm. 

That  the  man  should  exercise  authority  in  his  family  may 
be  deemed  unnatural  and  unjust  when  he  ceases  to  be  held 
responsible  for  the  household.  At  present  the  State  casts 
upon  him  the  undivided  responsibility.  What  the  leaders  of 
the  woman's  rights  movement  practically  seek  is,  for  the 
woman,  power  Avithout  responsibility,  for  the  man,  responsi- 
bility without  power.      ISut  tliis  is  an  arrangement  in  which 


214  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

man,  though  lie  may  be  talked  into  it  for  the  moment,  is  not 
likely  in  the  end  to  acquiesce. 

Is  the  marriage  tie  still  too  tight?  ^  Is  divorce  not  easy 
enough?  One  would  think  that  divorce  was  easy  enough  in 
America,  when  in  some  Statss  you  have  a  divorce  for  every  ten 
marriages,  when  a  judge  at  Chicago  can  dissolve  eight  mar- 
riages in  sixty-two  minutes,  when  wedlock  is  beginning  to  be 
talked  of  as  an  experiment  which  may  be  terminated  if  it  is 
not  found  pleasant  to  both  sides. ^  This  does  not  fall  far  short 
of  the  civilised  form  of  promiscuity  the  tendency  to  which  one 
advanced  reformer  hails,  or  from  the  idea  of  another  who  lays 
it  down  that  "  there  is  nothing  impure,  nothing  wrong,  in  the 
voluntary  sexual  act  per  se  though  not  sanctioned  by  what  we 
now  term  marriage."^  Mormonism,  if  its  polygamy  is  de- 
nounced, has  matter  for  a  retort.  American  legislatures 
themselves  are  beginning  to  recoil.  In  Great  Britain  divorce 
is  not  so  easy,  yet  it  is  surely  not  too  difficult  if  the  marriage 
tie  is  to  be  preserved.  The  children,  who  cannot  fail  to  suffer 
by  the  wreck  of  the  family,  are  entitled  to  consideration  as 
well  as  the  parents.  Society  at  large  is  entitled  to  considera- 
tion. Though  marriages  are  made  not  in  heaven  but  on  earth, 
it  may  safely  be  said  that  the  great  majority  of  them  are 
happy;  at  least  that  the  partners  are  happier  united  than  they 
would  have  been  alone.  But  their  success  depends,  in  ordinary 
cases,  on  the  permanence  of  the  bond,  which  enforces  restraint 
of  temper  and  mutual  accommodation.  If  divorce  were  always 
open,  compatibility  would  be  seldom  found;  the  bond  would  be 
broken  by  the  unscrupulous  as  often  as  matrimony  failed  to 
realise  the  dreams  of  courtship.     It  is  easy  to  paint  horrible 

1  See  Mona  Caird's  articles  in  the  Fortnight])/  (Vol.  liii.)  and  Westminster 
lieviews  (Vol.  cxxx.).    See  also  Mill's  The  Subjection  of  Wonum,  Chap.  ii. 

'•^It  seems  that  the  largest  number  of  divorces  are  found  in  the  com- 
munities where  the  advocates  of  female  suffrage  are  most  numerous,  and 
where  the  individuality  of  woman  in  relation  to  her  husband,  which  such 
a  doctrine  inculcates,  is  greatest.  The  movement,  therefore,  or  at  least 
the  tendencies,  appear  to  be  connected.     See  Minority  Eeport,  p.  10. 

^  Westminster  Revieic^  May,  1894. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  215 

pictures  of  unwilling  union  after  mutual  disappointment. 
Sucli  things  do  happen,  and  very  tragical  and  deplorable  they 
are.  The  remedy  is  caution  before  marriage,  not  the  virtual 
overthrow  of  an  institution  on  which,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the 
order,  purity,  and  happiness  of  society  depend.^ 

Marriage  may  be  described  from  one  point  of  view  as  a 
restraint  imposed  upon  the  passions  of  the  man  for  the  benefit 
of  the  woman.  Cold-blooded  philosophers  choose  to  speak  of 
the  sexual  passion  in  man  as  brutal.  Mighty  it  is;  it  is  no 
more  brutal  than  any  other  passion  or  appetite  gratification  of 
which  is  necessary  to  the  preservation  of  life  and  the  race.  It 
is  the  physical  basis  of  sentiments  the  most  beautiful  and 
refined.  At  all  events  it  is  in  most  natures  imperious.  Were 
it  not,  man  could  hardly  be  induced  to  take  on  him  the  burden 
of  maintaining  wife  and  children.  Being  imperious,  it  will  be 
gratified,  if  not  by  marriage,  in  other  ways,  and  woman  would 
not  be  the  gainer  by  the  change. 

The  matrimonial  history  of  Shelley  is  instructive  and  full 
of  warning  because  he  was  so  highly  refined,  and  raised  so  much 
above  the  animal  passions  of  ordinary  men.  Shelley,  as  his 
admiring  biographer  frankly  tells  us,  finding  after  some  two 
years  or  more  of  marriage,  that  his  Harriet  "did  not  siiit  him," 
thougli  she  "  had  given  no  cause  whatsoever  for  repudiation  by 
breach  or  tangible  neglect  of  wifely  duty,"  cast  her  off  in  an 
"abrupt  de  facto  manner"  and  took  Mary  to  his  arms.  Mary, 
of  course,  was  of  the  same  opinion.  "  Shelley,"  says  the  biog- 
rapher, "  was  an  avowed  opponent  on  principle  to  the  formal  and 
coercive  tie  of  marriage;  therefore  in  ceasing  his  marital  con- 
nection with  Harriet,  and  assuming  a  similar  relation  to  Mary, 
he  did  nothing  which  he  regarded  as  wrong,  though  as  far  as 
anything  yet  published  goes,  it  must  distinctly  be  said  that  he 
consulted  his  own  option  rather  than  Harriet's."     The  biogra- 

1  Tleference  cannot  be  made  to  this  momentous  subject  without  ac- 
knowledging tlie  great  service  rendered  to  society  by  the  Rev.  Sanuiel  W. 
Dilie,  LL.D.,  Corresponding  Secretary  of  tlie  United  States  National 
Divorce  Reform  League,  whose  laborious  investigations  have  brought  the 
facts  before  us. 


216  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

pher  asserts  that  Harriet,  after  tlie  separation,  connected 
herself  with  some  other  protector,  a  charge  which,  it  is  to  be 
presumed,  he  would  not  make  without  knowing  it  to  be  true, 
and  the  truth  of  which  would  not  in  any  way  mend  the  case.^ 
Legislation  on  these  lines  would  suit  some  men  better  than  any 
woman.     It  did  not  suit  poor  Harriet. 

It  appears  that  in  the  series  of  legislative  reforms  which  in 
the  course  of  a  century  has  been  bringing  Europe  finally  out 
of  the  feudal  system,  with  its  quasi-military  relations,  and  with 
the  vestiges  of  tribalism  Avhich  lingered  in  it,  into  the  system 
of  modern  society,  the  interests  of  both  sexes  have  been 
embraced,  and  that  of  the  female  sex  has  had  its  full  share. 
This,  as  the  legislatures  were  male,  seems  to  prove  not  only 
that  men  in  legislating  are  unlikely  to  forget  their  wives, 
mothers,  sisters,  and  daughters,  but  that  women  without  votes 
can  exercise  great  influence  on  legislation.  The  press  is  open 
to  them,  it  is  powerful,  and  not  a  few  of  them  make  use  of  it. 
The  platform  is  open  to  as  many  of  them  as  do  not  shrink  from 
its  publicity.  They  have  access  under  the  most  favourable  con- 
ditions to  those  by  whom  the  law  is  made.  That  they  have 
confidence  in  the  justice  and  affection  of  men  their  present  ap- 
peal, as  has  been  said  before,  shows;  for  it  is  from  man's  free 
will  that  they  must  expect  the  concession  of  the  suffrage.  Some 
of  them,  it  is  true,  threaten  us  with  a  terrible  vengeance  if 
their  petition  is  not  heard,  but  they  are  powerless  to  give  effect 
to  tlieir  threats.  They  will  renounce  their  present  influence  in 
grasping  the  vote.  Let  them  appear  as  a  separate  interest  in 
the  political  arena,  and  they  will,  like  every  other  separate 
interest,  waken  an  antagonism  which  does  not  now  exist. 

That  women  are  treated  as  citizens  only  for  the  purpose  of 
taxation  is  the  summary  of  their  wrongs  blazoned  in  mani- 
festos by  the  leaders  of  the  movement.  The  answer  is  that  the 
State  treats  them  in  all  respects  as  citizens,  giving  them  pro- 
tection for  person,  property,  and  character,  with  every  benefit 

1  See  Mr.  William  Michael  Rossetti's  Memoir  prefixed  to  his  edition  of 
Shelley's  Poetical  Works.  London:  Moxon,  1870.  Different  versions 
have  been  given,  but  there  can  be  no  dispute  about  the  main  facts. 


WOMAN    SUFFKAGK.  217 

which  civil  government  can  bestow,  and  therefore  full  value 
for  their  taxes. 

The  plain  question  then  presents  itself  in  the  joint  interest 
of  the  two  sexes,  whether  the  exercise  of  political  power  by 
women  would  be  generally  conducive  to  good  government.  If 
it  would  not,  the  concession,  it  must  be  repeated,  would  be  a 
wrong  done  to  the  whole  community.  We  know  very  well 
that  in  some  gifts  and  qualities  woman  is  superior  to  man. 
Suppose  she  is  superior  to  him  on  the  whole.  Suppose,  to 
adopt  the  somewhat  amatory  language  of  Mr.  Blair's  Com- 
mittee, she  is  the  angelic  portion  of  humanity.  It  does  not 
■follow  that  she  is  political  any  more  than  man  is  maternal  or 
adapted  for  housekeeping.  Nor  is  the  absence  of  political 
qualities  a  disgrace  to  her  any  more  than  the  absence  of 
maternal  or  housekeeping  qualities  is  to  him.  Difference  of 
spheres,  we  must  repeat,  the  spheres  being  equal  in  impor- 
tance, implies  no  disparagement.  As  a  rule,  it  is  in  the 
affections  and  graces  that  woman  is  strong;  and  these,  the 
affections  at  least,  though  they  may  be  worth  more  than 
the  practical  qualities  needed  in  politics,  are  not  the  practical 
qualities.  But  the  training  also  is  wanting.  The  political 
wisdom  of  men  in  general,  to  whatever  it  may  amount,  is 
formed  by  daily  contact  and  collision  witli  the  world  in  which 
they  have  to  gain  their  bread,  and  which  impresses  upon  them 
in  its  rough  school  caution,  prudence,  the  necessity  of  com- 
promise, the  limitations  of  their  will.  Some  of  them  are 
flighty  enough  after  all,  and  the  world  just  now  is  in  no  small 
peril  from  their  flightiness.  But  their  general  tendency  as  a 
sex  is  to  be  commonplace  and  practical.  Their  life  usually  is 
more  or  less  public,  while  that  of  woman  is  in  the  home. 
Moreover,  they  feel  as  a  sex  the  full  measure  of  responsibility 
in  public  action.  This  is  not  felt  so  strongly  by  their  partners. 
If  rash  measures  get  the  community  into  trouble,  it  is  by  the 
men  that  it  must  be  got  out  again.  To  them  it  will  fall  to  pull 
the  waggon  through  the  slough.  The  exception  taken  to 
female  legislators,  or  Ministers  of  State,  or  judges,  on  account 
of  the  interruptions  of  the  nursery  might  be  met  by  appointing 


218  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

only  spinsters  or  widows.  But  it  would  be  impossible,  with- 
out change  of  sentiment,  to  hold  the  female  legislator,  admin- 
istrator, or  judge  to  the  full  measure  of  male  responsibility. 
If  they  were  called  to  account  they  would  plead  their  sex.  We 
are  told  that  ladies  in  New  York  objected  to  the  appointment 
of  education  commissioners  of  their  own  sex  on  the  ground  that 
they  were  exempted  from  criticism  by  the  gallantry  of  the  men. 

It  is  supposed  that  women  would  allay  the  angry  strife  of 
faction  and  reline  its  coarseness  by  imparting  their  gentleness, 
tenderness,  and  delicacy  to  public  life.  But  is  it  not  because 
they  have  been  kept  out  of  politics  and  generally  out  of  the 
contentious  arena  that  they  have  remained  gentle,  tender,  and 
delicate?  Weakness  thrown  into  an  exciting  struggle  usually 
shows  itself,  not  by  superior  gentleness,  but  by  loss  of  self- 
control.  Of  this,  the  crusade  against  the  Contagious  Diseases 
Act  in  England  has  given  some  proof.  By  the  use  which  both 
the  political  parties  in  England  have  of  late  been  making  of 
women  for  electioneering  purposes,  the  fury  of  the  fray  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  allayed. 

"Corruption  of  male  suffrage,"  says  Mr.  Blair's  Eeport,  "is 
already  a  well-nigh  fatal  disease."  Would  it  be  cured  by 
throwing  in  the  other  sex?  That  women  would  be  likely,  by 
taking  part  in  public  life,  to  make  it  pure,  that  they  are  less 
prone  than  men  to  favouritism,  jobbery,  and  corruption,  is 
contrary  to  experience,  which  shows  that  they  are  prone  to 
these  minor  vices  while  they  are  comparatively  seldom  guilty 
of  the  greater  crimes. 

In  a  paper  prepared  at  the  request  of  an  association  of 
women,  which  is  cited  in  the  Minority  Eeport  of  the  Senate 
Committee,  Mr.  Erancis  Parkman  says  of  tlie  female  politician 
as  she  is  and  is  likely  to  be  in  the  United  States : 

"  It  is  not  woman's  virtues  that  would  be  prominent  or  influential  in 
the  political  arena,  they  would  shun  it  by  an  invincible  repulsion  ;  and 
the  opposite  qualities  would  be  drawn  into  it.  The  Washington  lobby 
has  given  us  some  means  of  judging  what  we  may  expect  from  the  woman 
'  inside  politics.'  If  politics  are  to  be  purified  by  artfulness,  effrontery, 
insensibility,  a  pushing  self-assertion,  and  a  glib  tongue,  then  we  may 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  219 

look  for  regeneration  ;   for  the  typical  female  politician  will  be  rielily 
endowed  with  all  these  gifts. 

"Thus  accoutred  for  the  conflict,  she  may  fairly  hope  to  have  the 
better  of  her  masculine  antagonist.  A  woman  has  the  inalienable  right  of 
attacking  without  being  attacked  in  return.  She  may  strike,  but  uuist 
not  be  struck  either  literally  or  figuratively.  Most  women  refrain  from 
abusing  their  privilege  of  non-combatants  ;  but  there  are  those  in  whom 
the  sense  of  impunity  breeds  the  cowardly  courage  of  the  virago. 

"In  reckoning  the  resources  of  the  female  politicians,  there  is  one 
which  can  by  no  means  be  left  out.  None  know  better  than  woman  the 
potency  of  feminine  charms  aided  by  feminine  arts.  The  woman  '  inside 
politics '  will  not  fail  to  make  use  of  an  influence  so  subtle  and  so  strong 
and  of  which  the  management  is  peculiarly  suited  to  her  tiilents.  If  — 
and  the  contingency  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable  —  she  is  not  gifted 
with  charms  of  her  own,  she  will  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  and  using 
others  of  her  sex  who  are.  If  report  is  to  be  trusted,  Delilah  has  already 
spread  her  snares  for  the  Congressional  Samson  ;  and  the  power  before 
which  the  wise  fail  and  the  mighty  fall  has  been  invoked  against  the 
sages  and  heroes  of  the  Capitol.  When  'woman'  is  fairly  'inside 
politics '  the  sensation  press  will  reap  a  harvest  of  scandals  more  lucrative 
to  itself  than  profitable  to  public  morals.  And  as  the  zeal  of  one  class  of 
female  reformers  has  been  and  no  doubt  will  be  largely  directed  to  their 
grievances  in  matters  of  sex,  we  shall  have  shrill-tongued  discussions  of 
subjects  which  had  far  better  be  let  alone. 

"It  may  be  said  that  the  advocates  of  female  suffrage  do  not  look  to 
political  women  for  the  purifying  of  politics,  but  to  the  votes  of  the  sex  at 
large.  The  two,  however,  cannot  be  separated.  It  should  be  remembered 
that  the  question  is  not  of  a  limited  and  select  female  suffrage,  but  of  a 
universal  one.  To  limit  would  be  impossible.  It  would  seek  the  broadest 
areas  and  the  lowest  depths,  and  spread  itself  through  the  marshes  and 
malarious  pools  of  society."  ^ 

That  some  women  are  political  and  many  men  are  not,  is  as 
true  as  it  is  tliat  some  men  are  unmilitary  and  a  few  women  are 
Amazons.  But  this  does  not  alter  the  general  fact;  and  it  is 
upon  general  facts  that  political  institutions  must  be  founded. 

Mill,  appealing  to  liistory,  bids  us  mark  that  so  excellent  a 
judge  of  practical  ability  as  Charles  V.  set  women  to  govern 
the  Netherlands.  Charles  V.  appointed  women  because  he 
had  no  males  in  his  family  to  appoint.     It  was  in  fact  this 

1  Minority  Report,  p.  24. 


220  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

failure  of  males  in  dynasties,  combined  with  the  superstition 
of  hereditary  right,  that  led  to  the  introduction  in  Europe  of 
what  John  Knox  called  "the  monstrous  regiment  of  women." 
Charles's  experiment  was  not  happy,  since  the  result  was  the 
revolt  of  the  Netherlands.  Blanche  of  Castile,  is  also  cited  by 
Mill.  She  appears  to  have  been  a  woman  of  masculine  quali- 
ties, not  to  say  a  virago,  to  have  held  her  excellent  but  rather 
weak-minded  son  in  complete  subjection,  and  to  have  governed 
Avith  vigour  and  judgment  as  his  vicegerent;  but  there  were 
evidently  two  sides  to  her  character;  which  of  them  prevailed 
on  the  Avhole,  we  have  hardly  evidence  enough  to  decide. 

If  we  are  to  go  to  history,  to  history  let  us  go;  only  remem- 
bering that  the  examples  are  those  of  queens  regnant,  or 
women  placed  by  their  circumstances  in  positions  of  power,  and 
that  they  afford  no  certain  indication  of  what  women  would  be 
when  they  had  climbed  to  power  as  demagogues  after  passing 
through  the  party  mill. 

In  England,  the  women  who  have  wielded  power  legally  or 
practically  have  been  Matilda,  the  claimant  of  the  crown 
against  Stephen,  about  whom  we  know  little,  but  who  seems 
to  have  injured  her  party  by  her  arrogance;  Eleanor,  the  jeal- 
ous and  intriguing  Queen  of  Henry  II.,  who  laboured  to  secure 
the  succession  for  John,  and  Avhose  own  record  is  not  fair; 
Isabella,  the  paramour  of  Mortimer,  and  with  him  guilty  of 
the  murder  of  Edward  II. ;  Margaret,  the  Queen  of  Henry  VI., 
whose  violence  and  favouritism  helped  to  bring  on  the  War  of 
the  Roses;  Mary,  of  whom  it  need  only  be  said  that  she  was 
probably  not  a  bad  woman,  but  misled  by  influences  to  which 
her  sex  is  specially  exposed;  Elizabeth;  Henrietta  Maria,  who 
by  her  feminine  violence  had,  like  Margaret  of  Anjou,  no  small 
share  in  plunging  the  country  into  civil  war ;  and  Queen  Anne, 
who,  under  personal  influences  and  at  the  instigation  of  a 
favourite  waiting-woman,  upset  a  great  ministry  and  deprived 
the  country  of  the  fruits  of  victory,  while,  had  she  lived 
longer,  her  fondness  for  her  family  would  have  probably  led  to 
an  attempt  to  restore  the  Stuarts.  The  star  is  Elizabeth.  But 
Elizabeth's  reputation  for  anything  except  the  arts  of  popu- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  221 

larity,  in  which  she  was  supreme,  has  suffered  terribly  by  the 
researches  of  Motley  and  other  recent  writers.     Her  deceit- 
fulness,  perfidy,  and  ingratitude  to  those  who  had  served  her 
and  the  country  best,  were  pretty   well  known,  as  were  her 
vanity  and  her  coquetry.     But  her  reputation  for  statesman- 
ship is  now  greatly  reduced,  and  it  is  clear  that  the  country 
was  saved  not  by  her,  but  by  itself;  from  the  Armada  it  was 
saved  in  her  despite.     Mr.  Froude,  who  set  out  as  her  fervent 
admirer,  has  in  the  end  to  say  that  her  conduct  in  the  transac- 
tion which  preceded  the  sailing  of  the  Armada  "  would  alone 
suffice  to  disqualify  Elizabeth  from  being  cited  as  an  example 
of  the  capacity  of  female  sovereigns."     And  when  the  country 
was  saved,  whom  did  the  Queen  select  for  the  honour?    Whom 
did  she  prefer  on  this  and  all  other  occasions  above  the  great 
servants  of  the  State?     The  good-looking  but  worthless  Leices- 
ter, "infamed,"  as  Burleigh  said  he  was,  "by  the  death  of  his 
wife."     Her  ungrateful  persecution  of  the   Puritans   in  the 
latter   part   of   her   reign   sowed   the  wind   from   which   her 
unhappy  successors  reaped  the  whirlwind.     She  had  the  good 
fortune  to  be  the  crowning  figure  of  an  heroic  age,  and  her  sex 
threw  about  her  a  romantic  halo,  the  brightness  of  which  was 
enhanced  by  the  calamities,  partly  her  bequest,  which  ensued. 
In  France  the  more  recent  list  is  Catherine  de  Medici,  whose 
name  suffices ;  Anne  of  Austria,  who  was  in  the  able  hands  of 
Mazariii;  Madame  de  Maintenon,  to  whose  female  piety  France 
owed  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  iSTantes,  while  to  her  ten- 
derness for  the  Catholic  Stuarts  it  owed  a  great  war;  Madame 
de  Pompadour,  whose  name  again  suffices;  Marie  Antoinette, 
who,  besides  helping  to  dismiss  Turgot  and  to  complete  the 
ruin  of  French  finances  by  plunging  France  into  the  war  of 
the  American  Revolution,  did  so  much  to  bring  on  the  crash  of 
the  French  Eevolution  that  her  misdeeds  were  scarcely  washed 
o\it  by  her  tears.     The  story  is  closed  by  the  influence,  partly 
religious,  partly  dynastic  and  domestic,  which,  Frenclimen  say, 
made  the  Franco-German  war  and  finished  the  work  by  iiiterfer- 
ing  with  its  conduct  in  the  interest  of  the  dynasty  and  deterring 
the  Emperor  and  his  army  from  falling  back  on  Paris. 


222  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Isabella  of  Castile  graced  lier  crown  and  formed  a  noble 
queen  of  cliivalry  in  the  war  against  the  Moors.  As  a  ruler, 
she  had  Ferdinand  at  her  side.  That  it  was  to  her  feminine 
instinct  that  the  genius  of  Columbus  was  revealed,  recent 
researches  have  made  less  certain  than  it  is  that  her  piety 
established  the  Inquisition  in  Castile,  and  that  great  numbers 
of  persons  were  burned  by  it  in  her  reign. 

Monuments  of  a  female  influence  over  government  more 
certainly  beneficent  were  the  crosses  which  Edward  I.  erected 
in  memory  of  the  Queen  who  seems  to  have  softened  his 
sternness  with  her  love,  while  she  displayed  the  beauty  of 
affection  on  the  throne.  England  also  owes  a  debt  of  gratitude 
to  Caroline  of  Brunswick,  by  whose  unambitious  support  Wal- 
pole,  the  best  statesman  of  an  unheroic  time,  was  kept  in  power. 

Nothing  need  be  said  about  queens  nominally  regnant  who 
have  reigned  but  not  governed,  and  whose  influence  has  been 
happily  exerted  in  the  social  sphere  which  all  admit  to  be  the 
realm  of  woman. 

Queen  Victoria,  however,  is  often  cited  as  a  proof  that  a 
woman  can  rule  an  Empire  without  male  help.  What  says 
Queen  Victoria  herself  ?  "  Lord  JMelbourne  was  very  useful  to 
me,  but  I  can  never  be  sufhciently  thankful  that  I  passed 
safely  through  those  two  years  to  my  marriage.  Then  I  was 
in  a  safe  haven,  and  there  I  remained  for  twenty  years.  Now 
that  is  over,  and  I  am  again  at  sea,  always  wishing  to  consult 
one  who  is  not  here,  groping  by  myself,  with  a  constant  sense 
of  desolation."  ^ 

Suppose  now  that  a  crisis  should  come  in  this  political 
struggle,  as  conceivably  it  may,  laying  a  strain  on  the  personal 
force  and  resolution  of  the  wearer  of  the  British  crown.  Sup- 
pose a  Radical  majority  should  demand  the  destruction  of  the 
House  of  Lords  by  a  swamping  creation  of  Peers.  Could  a 
lady  be  advised  or  expected  to  do  anything  which  would  expose 
her  to  danger  or  annoyance  even  in  the  utmost  necessity  of 
the  State? 

^  The  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Arthur  Penrhyn  Staulei/,  D.D.,  late 
Dean  of  Westminster,  by  Rowland  E.  Trothero,  M.A.,  Vol.  II.,  p.  127. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  223 

Mill  has  told  us  tliat  Begums  have  shone  as  rulers  in  India. 
He  was  in  the  India  House  and  his  authority  is  good,  though 
he  does  not  give  the  names.  It  is  hardly  credible  that  a 
woman  brought  up  in  a  Zenana  should  be  a  great  ruler,  but  she 
might  be  better  than  a  hog  or  a  tiger.  Not  all  Begums  have 
escaped  the  common  influence  of  the  Durbar.  We  have  one, 
styled  a  heroine,  making  away  successively  with  her  father-in- 
law,  her  husband,  and  her  son,  because  they  stood  in  her  way, 
enrolling  cut-throats,  and  practising  corruption  as  freely  as 
any  male.'^  The  superiority  can  hardly  be  such  as  to  give 
much  assurance  of  safety  in  revolutionising  the  relations  be- 
tween the  sexes. 

On  the  whole,  experience  apparently  so  far  fails  to  show 
that  the  introduction  of  women  into  politics  would  be  likely 
to  lead  to  any  improvement  of  government  or  legislation  suf- 
ficient to  countervail  the  danger  of  misdirecting  the  aspira- 
tions of  woman  and  withdrawing  her  from  her  proper  and 
transcendently  important  work  as  a  wife  and  mother. 

The  writer  of  this  paper  signed,  in  company  with  John 
Bright,  John  Stuart  Mill's  first  petition  in  favour  of  suffrage 
for  unmarried  women.  Mr.  Bright,  as  well  as  the  writer,  was 
a  good  deal  influenced  by  his  respect  and  regard  for  Mill. 
Both  of  them  afterwards  changed  their  minds,  and  Bright 
spoke  strongly  against  the  measure.  The  writer  found  that 
the  women  of  his  acquaintance  for  whom  he  had  most  respect, 
and  who  seemed  to  him  the  best  representatives  of  their  sex, 
were  opposed  to  the  change,  fearing  that  the  position  and 
privileges  of  women  in  general  would  be  sacrificed  to  the 
ambition  of  a  few. 

Since  that  time  Mill's  Autobiography  has  appeared,  and  has 
revealed  the  history  of  his  extraordinary  and  almost  portentous 
education,  the  singular  circumstances  of  his  marriage,  his 
hallucination  (for  it  surely  can  be  called  nothing  else)  as  to 
the  surpassing  genius  of  his  wife,  and  peculiarities  of  char- 
acter and  temperament  such  as  could  not  fail  to  prevent  him 
from  fully  appreciating  the  power  of  influences  which,  whatever 

1  See  C.  Forjelt's  Our  Meal  Danger  in  India,  p.  39. 


224  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

our  philosophy  may  say,  reign  and  will  continue  to  reign 
supreme  over  questions  of  this  kind.  To  him  marriage  was  a 
union  of  two  philosophers  in  tlie  pursuit  of  truth,  and  wedded 
life  was  intellectual  intercourse.  In  his  work  on  "  The  Sub- 
jection of  Women"  not  only  does  he  almost  leave  maternity 
out  of  sight,  but  sex  and  its  influences  seem  hardly  to  be 
present  to  his  mind.  Of  the  distiiictive  excellence  and  beauty 
of  the  female  character,  or  of  the  conditions  essential  to  its 
preservation,  it  does  not  appear  that  he  had  formed  any  idea, 
thougli  he  dilates  on  the  special  qualities  of  the  female 
understanding. 

Mill  has  allowed  us  to  see  that  his  opinions  as  to  the  politi- 
cal position  of  women  were  formed  early  in  his  life,  probably 
before  he  had  studied  history  rationally,  perhaps  before  the 
rational  study  of  history  had  come  into  existence.  The  con- 
sequence, Avith  all  deference  to  his  great  name  be  it  said,  is 
that  his  historical  presentment  of  the  case  is  fundamentally 
unsound.  He  and  his  disciples  represent  the  lot  of  the 
woman  as  having  always  been  determined  by  the  will  of  the 
man,  who,  according  to  them,  has  willed  tliat  she  should  be 
the  slave,  and  that  he  should  be  her  master  and  tyrant. 
"  Society,  both  in  this  [the  case  of  marriage]  and  other  cases, 
has  preferred  to  attain  its  object  by  foul  rather  than  by  fair 
means ;  but  this  is  the  only  case  in  which  it  has  substantially 
persisted  in  them  even  to  the  present  day."  This  is  Mill's 
fundamental  assumption;  and  from  it,  as  every  rational  student 
of  history  is  now  aware,  conclusions  utterly  erroneous  as  well 
as  injurious  to  humanity  must  flow.  The  lot  of  the  woman 
has  not  been  determined  by  the  will  of  the  man,  at  least  in 
any  considerable  degree.  The  lot  both  of  the  man  and  of  the 
woman  has  been  determined  from  age  to  age  by  circumstances 
over  which  the  will  of  neither  of  them  had  much  control,  and 
which  neither  could  be  blamed  for  accepting  or  failing  to 
reverse.  Mill  and  his  disciples  assume  that  the  man  has 
always  willed  that  he  should  himself  enjoy  political  rights, 
and  that  the  woman  should  be  his  slave;  forgetting  that  it  is 
only  in  a  few  countries  that  man  does  enjoy  political  rights, 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  225 

and  that,  even  in  those  few  countries,  freedom  is  the  birth, 
almost  of  yesterday.  It  may  probably  be  said  that  the  number 
of  men  who  have  really  and  freely  exercised  the  suffrage  up  to 
the  present  time  is  not  very  much  greater  than  the  number  of 
those  who  have  in  different  ages  and  in  various  ways  laid  down 
their  lives  or  made  personal  sacrifices  of  other  kinds  in  bring- 
ing elective  government  into  existence. 

In  the  early  stages  of  civilisation  the  family  was  socially 
and  legally,  as  well  as  politically,  a  unit.  Its  head  repre- 
sented the  whole  household  before  the  tribe,  the  State,  and  all 
persons  and  bodies  without;  while  within  he  exercised  absolute 
power  over  all  the  members,  male  as  well  as  female,  over  his 
sons  as  well  as  over  his  wife  and  daughters.  On  the  death  of 
the  head  of  a  family  his  eldest  son  stepped  into  his  place,  and 
became  the  representative  and  protector  of  the  whole  house- 
hold, including  the  widow  of  the  deceased  chief.  This  system, 
long  retained  in  conservative  Rome,  was  there  the  source  of 
the  national  respect  for  authority,  and,  by  an  expansion  of 
feeling  from  the  family  to  the  community,  of  the  patriotism 
which  produced  and  sustained  Roman  greatness.  Its  traces 
lingered  far  down  in  history.  It  was  not  male  tyranny 
that  authorised  a  Tudor  queen  to  send  members  of  the  royal 
household  to  the  Tower  by  her  personal  authority  as  the  mis- 
tress of  the  family,  without  regard  to  the  common  law  against 
arbitrary  imprisonment.  Such  a  constitution  was  essential  to 
the  existence  of  the  family  in  primitive  times;  without  it  the 
germs  of  nations  and  of  humanity  would  have  perished.  To 
suppose  that  it  was  devised  by  the  male  sex  for  the  gratifica- 
tion of  their  own  tyrannical  propensities,  would  be  most 
absurd.  It  Avas  at  least  as  much  a  necessity  to  the  primitive 
woman  as  it  was  to  the  primitive  man.  It  is  still  a  necessity 
to  woman  in  the  countries  where  the  primitive  type  of  society 
remains.  What  would  be  the  fate  of  a  female  Bedouin  if  she 
were  suddenly  invested  with  Woman's  Rights,  and  emanci- 
pated from  the  protection  of  her  husband? 

That  the  present  relation  of  women  to  their  husbands  liter- 
ally has  its  origin  in  slavery,  and  is  a  hideous  relic  of  that 


226  QUESTIONS   dF   THE   DAY. 

system,  is  a  theory  which  Mill  sets  forth  in  language  such  as, 
if  it  could  sink  into  the  hearts  of  those  to  whom  it  is  addressed, 
might  turn  affection  to  bitterness,  and  divide  every  household 
against  itself.     Yet  this  theory  is  without  historical  founda- 
tion.    It  seems  indeed  like  a  figure  of  invective  heedlessly 
converted  into  history.     Even  in  the  most  primitive  times, 
and  those  in  which  the   subjection  of  the  woman  was  most 
complete,  the  wife  was  clearly  distinguished  from  the  slave. 
The  lot  of  Sarah  is  different  from  that  of  Hagar ;  the  authority 
of  Hector  over  Andromache  is  absolute,  yet  no  one  can  con- 
fovind  her  position  with  that  of  her  handmaidens.     The  Roman 
matron  who  sent  her  slave  to  be  crucified,  the  Southern  matron 
who  was  the  fierce  supporter  of  slavery,  were  not  themselves 
slaves.     Whatever  may  now  be  obsolete  in  the  relations  of 
husband  and  wife  is  not  a  relic  of  slavery,  but  of  primitive 
marriage,  and  may  be  regarded  as  at  worst  an  arrangement 
once  indispensable  which  has  survived  its  hour.     Where  real 
slavery  has  existed,  it  has  extended  to  both  sexes,  and  it  has 
ceased  for  both  at  the  same  time.     Even  the  Oriental  seclusion 
of  women,  perhaps  the  worst  condition  in  which  the  sex  has 
ever  been,  has  its  root  not  in  the  slave-OAvning  propensity  so 
much  as  in  jealousy,  a  passion  which,  though  extravagant  and 
detestable  in  its  excessive  manifestafion,  is  not  without  an 
element  of  affection.     The  most  beautiful  building  in  the  East 
is  that  which  Shah  Jehan  raised  as  the  monument  of  a  beloved 
wife.     Is  it  possible  that  an  American  lady  living  in  Paris  on 
the  fruits  of  lier  husband's  toil  at  ISTew  York,  or  looking  on 
while  a  porter  at  Saratoga  toils  beneath  her  colossal  trunk, 
should  deem  herself  a  slave? 

If  the  calm  and  philosophic  nature  of  Mill  is  ever  betrayed 
into  violence,  it  is  in  his  denunciations  of  the  present  institu- 
tion of  marriage.  He  depicts  it  as  a  despotism  full  of  mutual 
degradation,  and  fruitful  of  no  virtues  or  affections  except  the 
debased  virtues  and  the  miserable  affections  of  the  master  and 
the  slave.  The  grossest  and  most  degrading  terms  of  Oriental 
servitude  are  used  to  designate  the  relations  of  husband  and 
wife  throughout  the  book.     A  husband  who  desires  his  wife's 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  227 

love  is  only  seeking  "to  have  in  the  woman  most  nearly  con- 
nected with  him,  not  a  forced  slave,  but  a  willing  one ;  not  a 
slave  merely,  but  a  favourite."  Husbands  have,  therefore, 
"put  everything  in  practice  to  enslave  the  minds  of  their 
wives."  If  a  wife  is  intensely  attached  to  her  husband, 
"exactly  as  much  may  be  said  of  domestic  slaver^'."  "It  is  a 
part  of  the  irony  of  life  that  the  strongest  feelings  of  devoted 
gratitude  of  which  human  nature  seems  to  be  susceptible  are 
called  forth  in  liuman  beings  towards  those  who,  having  the 
power  entirely  to  crush  their  earthly  existence,  voluntarily 
refrain  from  using  their  power."  Even  children  are  only  links 
in  the  chain  of  bondage.  By  the  affections  of  women  "are 
meant  the  only  ones  they  are  allowed  to  have,  those  to  the  men 
to  whom  they  are  connected,  or  to  the  children  who  constitute 
an  additional  and  indefeasible  tie  between  them  and  a  man." 
Such  a  description  of  British  matrimony  seems  to  be  scarcely 
sane.  The  Jesuit  is  an  object  of  sympathy  because  he  is  the 
enemy  of  the  domestic  tyrant,  and  it  is  assumed  that  the  hus- 
band can  have  no  motive  but  the  love  of  undivided  tyranny  for 
objecting  to  being  superseded  by  an  intriguing  interloper  in 
his  wife's  affections.  As  though  a  wife  would  regard  with 
complacency,  say  a  female  spiritualist  installed  beside  her 
hearth!  Mill's  book,  written  with  his  usual  clearness  and 
impressiveness,  having  been  the  manifesto,  has  remained  the 
manual  of  the  movement.  It  is  therefore  still  necessary  to 
deal  with  it,  nor  can  there  be  anything  invidious,  as  some  of 
his  admirers  seem  to  have  fancied,  in  reviewing  it  by  the  light 
of  the  Autobiography.  For  what  purpose  is  the  life  of  a 
philosopher  published  if  it  is  not  to  enable  us  better  to  under- 
stand his  works?  The  book  might  poison  marriage  if  it  were 
not  read  with  a  knowledge  of  the  influence  under  which  it  was 
written.  ]\Iill  himself  seems  at  last  to  start  from  tlie  picture 
which  he  has  drawn  and  to  be  inclined  to  qualify  it.  But  he 
does  this  faintly  and  too  late. 

If,  in  this  most  imperfect  world,  woman,  through  the 
changeful  ages,  has,  like  her  partner,  had  much  to  undergo, 
and  too  often  at  her  partner's  hands,  she  has  also  had  advan- 


228  QUESTIONS   OP   THE   DAY. 

tages  which  she  would  have  been  sorry  to  forfeit,  and  which 
she  would  be  sorry  to  forfeit  now.  She  has  sat  safe  in  her 
home  while  her  partner  was  toiling,  hunting,  battling  with  the 
sea,  fighting  for  her  abroad.  By  her  partner's  labour  and  with 
peril  of  his  life  the  earth  has  been  subdued  for  her  and  made 
fit  for  her  habitation.  When  she  complains  that  she  has  been 
treated  as  a  toy,  does  she  mean  that  she  has  been  wronged 
because  man  has  taken  most  of  the  rough  and  hard  work  to 
himself?  War  has  comparatively  spared  her;  public  justice 
has  been  lenient  to  her;  in  a  shipwreck  she  has  been  put  first 
into  the  boat,  while  the  slave  to  whom  she  now  likens  herself 
has  been  thrown  overboard  to  save  the  provisions.  In  civilised 
countries  she  is  on  all  occasions  served  and  considered  first; 
special  provisions  are  made  for  her  comfort  and  convenience. 
Is  this  the  lot  of  a  slave,  or  of  one  even  more  miserable  than 
a  slave? 

Sometimes  woman  has  had  man's  hard  work  to  do.  But  this 
has  been  mostly  in  times  of  special  need  or  of  general  bar- 
barism, and  the  revulsion  which  any  such  employment  of  her 
causes,  denotes  her  general  immunity.  The  Ked  Indian  used 
his  mate  as  a  beast  of  burden.  But  the  Eed  Indian  was  a 
savage.  Even  he,  however,  might  have  pleaded  special  need. 
The  hunter,  by  the  product  of  whose  chase  the  wigwam  was 
fed,  would  have  been  spoiled,  his  powers  of  endurance  Avould 
have  been  reduced,  and  the  keenness  of  his  sense  would  have 
been  impaired,  by  heavy  domestic  labour. 

Marriage  has  risen  in  character  with  the  general  progress  of 
civilisation  from  the  primeval  contract  of  force  or  purchase  to 
a  free  contract,  of  a  contract  generally  of  love.  Primeval 
practice  was  not  regulated  by  the  will  of  those  generations, 
but  by  primeval  circumstance,  and  the  improvement  of  the 
marriage  tie  has  come,  as  all  other  great  improvements  of 
human  relations  have  come,  in  the  course  of  secular  evolution. 
It  was  something  when  the  passions  of  the  male  were  subjected 
to  a  regular  and  lasting  bond  of  any  kind.  If  women  are  now 
to  be  made  independent  of  marriage,  which  appears  to  be  the 
aim  of  some  of  their  champions,  they  will  be  made  indepen- 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  229 

dent  of  that  in  which  the  happiness  of  a  creature  formed  for 
affection  usually  consists.  Perhaps  if  they  take  advantage  of 
their  independence  many  of  them  will  owe  their  champions 
but  scanty  thanks  in  their  old  age. 

The  anomalies  in  the  property  law  affecting  married  women, 
to  which  remedial  legislation  has  recently  been  directed,  are, 
like  whatever  is  obsolete  in  the  relations  between  the  sexes 
generally,  not  deliberate  iniquities,  but  survivals.  They  are 
relics  of  feudalism  or  of  still  more  primitive  institutions  incor- 
porated by  feudalism;  and  while  the  system  to  which  they 
belonged  existed  they  were  indispensable  parts  of  it,  and  must 
have  been  so  regarded  by  both  sexes  alike.  Any  one  who  is 
tolerably  well  informed  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  represent  them 
as  the  contrivances  of  male  injustice.  It  is  not  on  one  sex 
only  that  the  relics  of  feudalism  have  borne  hard. 

The  exclusion  of  women  from  professions  is  cited  as  another 
proof  of  constant  and  immemorial  injustice.  But  what  woman 
asked  or  wished  to  be  admitted  to  a  profession  a  hundred  or 
even  fifty  years  ago?  What  woman  till  quite  recently  would 
have  been  ready  to  renounce  marriage  and  maternity  in  order 
that  she  might  devote  herself  to  law,  medicine,  or  commercial 
pursuits?  The  demand  is  probably  in  some  measure  connected 
with  an  abnormal  and  possibly  transient  state  of  things.  The 
expensiveness  of  living  in  a  country  where  the  fashion  is  set 
by  millionaires,  combined  with  the  overcrowded  condition  of 
the  very  callings  to  which  women  are  demanding  admission, 
has  put  extraordinary  difficulties  in  the  way  of  marriage. 
Many  women  are  thus  left  without  an  object  in  life,  and  they 
naturally  try  to  open  for  themselves  some  new  career.  The 
utmost  sympathy  is  due  to  them,  and  every  facility  ought 
in  justice  to  be  afforded  them;  though  unhappily  the  addition 
of  fresh  competitors  for  subsistence  to  a  crowd  in  which  some 
are  already  starving  will  be  as  far  as  possible  from  removing 
the  real  root  of  the  evil,  to  say  nothing  of  the  risk  wliich  a 
woman  runs  in  committing  herself  irrevocably  to  an  undo- 
mestic  calling,  and  closing  against  herself  the  gate  of  mai'ried 
life.     But  the  demand,  as  has  already  been  said,  is  of  yester- 


230  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

day,  aiul  probably  in  its  serious  form  is  as  yet  confined  to  the 
countries  in  which  impediments  to  early  marriage  exist.  It  is 
not  always  easy  to  distinguish  the  serious  demand  from  a  pas- 
sion for  emulating  the  male  sex  which  is  hardly  more  respec- 
table in  women  than  the  affectation  of  feminine  tastes  and 
habits  would  be  in  a  man.  With  regard  to  the  profession  of 
law,  indeed,  so  far  as  it  is  concerned  with  the  administration 
of  justice,  there  is,  as  was  said  before,  and  while  human 
emotions  retain  their  force  always  will  be,  a  reason,  independent 
of  the  question  of  demand,  for  excluding  women,  at  least  for 
excluding  one  of  the  two  sexes  from  jury  trials.  The  influence 
of  a  pretty  advocate  appealing  to  a  jury,  perhaps  in  behalf  of 
a  client  of  her  own  sex,  would  not  have  seemed  to  Mill  at  all 
dangerous  to  the  integrity  of  public  justice;  but  most  people, 
and  especially  those  who  have  seen  anything  of  sentimental 
causes  in  the  United  States,  or  even  in  more  phlegmatic  Eng- 
land, will  probably  be  of  a  different  opinion. 

What  has  been  said  as  to  the  professions  is  equally  true  of 
the  universities,  which  were  schools  for  the  professions.  A  few 
years  ago,  what  girl  would  have  consented  to  leave  her  home 
and  mingle  with  male  students?  What  girl  would  have 
thought  it  possible  that  she  could  go  through  the  whole  of  the 
medical  course  with  male  companions  of  her  studies?  Even 
now  what  is  the  amount  of  settled  belief  in  "co-education"? 
What  would  be  said  to  a  young  man  who  applied  for  admission 
in  the  name  of  that  principle  at  the  door  of  any  female  college? 
Without  arraigning  what  has  been  done,  those  whose  duty 
it  is  may  reconsider  with  due  deliberation  the  two  distinct 
questions  —  whether  it  is  desirable  that  the  education  of  both 
sexes  shall  be  the  same,  and  whether  it  is  desirable  that  the 
young  men  and  the  young  women  of  the  wealthier  classes 
shall  be  educated  together  in  the  universities.  Beneath  the 
first  question  lies  the  still  deeper  question  whether  it  is 
good  for  humanity  that  woman,  who  has  hitherto  been  the 
helpmate  and  the  complement,  should  become,  as  the  leaders 
of  the  Woman's  Rights  movement  evidently  desire,  the  rival 
and  competitor  of  man.     Both  she  cannot  be ;  and  it  is  by  no 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  231 

means  clear  that  in  deciding  which  she  shall  be  the  aspirations 
of  the  leaders  of  this  movement  coincide  with  the  interests  of 
the  sex.  Marriage,  if  that  is  to  be  considered,  is  surely  more 
enriched  by  diversity  than  by  uniformity  of  acquirements 
on  the  sides  of  the  two  partners,  universal  accomplishment 
being  possible  to  neither. 

If  the  education  of  women  has  hitherto  been  defective,  so 
has  that  of  men.  We  are  now  going  to  do  our  best  to  improve 
both.  Surely  no  accomplishment  in  the  acquisition  of  which 
woman  has  been  condemned  to  spend  her  time  could  well  be 
less  useful  than  that  of  writing  Greek  or  Latin  verses  has  been 
to  the  generality  of  male  students.  That  the  education  of 
woman  has  hitherto  been  lighter  than  that  of  men  is  no  proof 
that  for  the  purposes  of  woman's  destination  it  has  been  worse. 
Among  other  things,  it  is  to  be  considered  whether  the  children 
would  be  healthy  if  the  brain  of  the  mother,  as  well  as  that  of 
the  father,  were  severely  tasked.  One  medical  authority  at 
least  holds  tliat  the  principal  cause  of  the  increasing  avoidance 
and  prevention  of  child-bearing  in  the  United  States  is  the 
physical  and  nervous  deterioration  of  the  women,  which,  in 
his  opinion,  is  largely  due  to  the  severe  strain  of  modern  life 
and  education.^  That  the  comparative  absence  of  works  of 
creative  genius  among  women  is  due  entirely  to  the  social 
tyranny  which  has  excluded,  or  is  supposed  to  have  excluded, 
them  from  literary  or  scientilic  careers,  cannot  be  said  to  be 
self-evident.  The  case  of  musical  composition,  often  cited, 
seems  to  suggest  that  there  is  another  cause,  and  that  the  career 
of  intellectual  ambition  is  in  most  cases  not  likely  to  be  hap- 
pier than  that  of  domestic  affection,  though  this  is  no  reason 
why  the  experiment  should  not  be  fairly  tried.  Perhaps  the 
intellectual  disabilities  under  which  women  have  laboured, 
even  in  the  past,  have  been  somewhat  overstated.  If  Shelley 
was  a  child  to  Mrs.  Mill,  as  Mr.  Mill  says,  no  "social  disa- 
bilities "  hindered  Mrs.  Mill  from  publishing  poems  which 
would   have    eclipsed    Shelley.      The   writer   once   heard   an 

^  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
July,  1894,  p.  5G. 


232  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

American  lecturer  of  eminence  confidently  ascribe  the  licen- 
tiousness of  English  fiction  in  the  early  part  of  the  last  century 
to  the  exclusion  of  women  from  literary  life.  The  lecturer 
forgot  that  the  most  popular  novelist  of  that  period,  and  cer- 
tainly not  the  least  licentious,  was  Mrs.  Aphra  Behn.  This 
lady's  name  suggests  the  remark  that  as  the  relations  of  the 
sexes  have  been  the  most  intimate  conceivable,  the  action  of 
character  has  been  reciprocal,  and  the  level  of  moral  ideas  and 
sentiments  for  both  pretty  much  the  same. 

Mill,  seeing  that  the  man  is  the  stronger,  seems  to  assume 
that  the  relations  between  man  and  woman  must  always  have 
been  regulated  by  the  law  of  the  strongest.  But  strength  is 
not  tyranny.  The  protector  must  always  be  stronger  than  the 
person  under  his  protection.  A  mother  is  overwhelmingly 
superior  in  strength  to  her  infant  child,  and  the  child  is  com- 
pletely at  her  mercy.  The  very  highest  conception  that 
humanity  has  ever  formed,  whether  it  be  founded  in  reality  or 
not,  is  that  of  power  losing  itself  in  affection.  St.  Paul  (who, 
on  any  hypothesis  as  to  his  inspiration,  is  an  authoritative 
expositor  of  the  morality  which  became  that  of  Christendom) 
affirms  with  perfect  clearness  the  essential  equality  of  the 
sexes  and  their  necessary  relations  to  each  other  as  the  two 
halves  of  humanity.  Yet  he  no  less  distinctly  ratifies  the 
unity  of  the  family,  the  authority  of  its  head,  and  the  female 
need  of  that  headship;  a  need  which,  supposing  it  to  be 
natural,  has  nothing  in  it  more  degrading  than  the  need  of 
protection.^ 

Subjection  is  a  word  of  sinister  import,  and  Mill,  in  adof)t- 
ing  it,  prejudices  the  question.  Subordination,  or  obedience, 
where  it  is  necessary,  implies  no  disparagement.  Nothing 
grates  on  ordinary  feelings  when  Beatrice,  in  ''Much  Ado 
about  Nothing,"  says  that  she  "will  tame  her  wild  heart  to 
the  hand  "  of  the  man  whom  she  is  to  wed.  Not  the  soldier 
only,  but  most  of  us  have  some  one  whom  we  are  bound  to 
obey,  and  whom,  it  being  necessary,  we  obey  without  humilia- 
tion.    A  head  of  the  family  there  must  be  if  there  is  not  to 

1  1  Cor.  xi.,  7-12  ;   E/>h.  v.,  •22-33;   Cul  iii.,  18. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  233 

be  domestic  anarchy.  Cliilclren  must  know  to  wliom  their 
obedience  is  due.  Mill  proposes  tliat  the  authority  shall  be 
divided  between  the  husband  and  wife  in  the  marriage  con- 
tract, and  that  the  subjects  in  which  each  is  to  be  supreme 
shall  be  set  out  in  a  schedule  j  but  he  has  not  given  us  a  draft 
of  such  a  contract.  He  had  himself  no  children.  In  the 
whole  of  this  movement  of  sexual  revolution  the  family,  though 
it  may  not,  with  anyone  but  a  Nihilist,  be  the  object  of  inten- 
tional or  conscious  attack,  is  practically  threatened  with  dis- 
solution. One  Utopian  reformer,  as  we  have  seen,  proposes  not 
only  that  the  wife  shall  be  made  independent  of  the  husband, 
but  that  the  children  shall  be  made  independent  of  the  i)arents. 

"Enfranchise  women,"  says  Mr.  Blair's  Report,  "or  this 
Republic  will  steadily  advance  to  the  same  destruction,  the 
same  ignoble  and  tragic  catastrophe,  which  has  engulfed  the 
male  republics  of  history."  This  seems  to  imply  a  new  read- 
ing of  history,  according  to  which  republics  have  owed  their 
fall  to  their  masculine  character.  The  Greek  republics  were 
overwhelmed  by  the  Macedonian  monarchy,  their  surrender  to 
which  was  assuredly  not  due  to  excess  of  masculine  force. 
The  Roman  republic  was  converted  by  the  vast  extension  of 
Roman  conquest  into  a  military  empire.  The  city  republican- 
ism of  the  Middle  Ages  was  crushed  by  the  great  monarchies. 
The  short-lived  Commonwealth  of  England  owed  its  overthrow 
to  causes  which  certainly  had  nothing  to  do  with  sex.  The 
Swiss  republic,  the  American  republic,  the  French  republic 
still  live,  so  do  several  constitutional  monarchies,  including 
Great  Britain  and  her  colonies,  which  are  republics  in  all  but 
name.  It  is  true  that  these  commonwealths,  though,  we  may 
hope,  less  directly  threatened  with  the  wrath  of  heaven  than 
the  report  assumes  them  to  be,  are  yet  not  free  from  peril;  but 
their  peril  apparently  lies  in  the  passions,  the  giddiness,  the 
anarchical  tendencies  of  the  multitude,  and  would  hardly  be 
averted  by  opening  another  floodgate  and  letting  in  all  at  once 
the  full  tide  of  feminine  emotion. 

Woman,  if  she  becomes  a  man,  will  be  a  weaker  man.  Yet 
she  must  be  prepared  to  resign  her  privileges  as  a  woman. 


234  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Privilege  and  equality  at  once  she  cannot  hope  to  have.     To 
clon  the  other  sex  she  must  doff  her  own,  a  process  in  which  she 
will  run  some  risk  of  ceasing  to  be,  or  at  least  to  be  deemed, 
the  "angelic  portion  of  humanity."     For  the  time,  perhaps, 
the  ancient  sentiment  might  linger;    but  the  total  change  of 
relations  would  in  the  end  bring  a  change  of  feeling.     Chivalry 
depends  on  the  acknowledged  need  of  protection,  and  what  is 
accorded  to  a  gentle  helpmate  would  not  be  accorded  to  a  rival. 
Man  would  not  be  bound  nor  inclined  to  treat  with  tenderness 
and  forbearing  the  being  who  was  jostling  with  him  in  all  the 
walks  of  life,  wrangling  with  him  in  the  law  courts,  wrestling 
with  him  on  the  stump,  manoeuvring  against  him  in  elections, 
haggling  with  him  on  'Change  or  in  Wall  Street.     Take  mere 
sex  apart  from  character,  and  there  will  be  nothing  in  the  female 
of  the  human  species  more  than  in  the  female  of  any  other 
species  to  command  our  respect  or  devotion.     Aphrodite,  in 
her  heart,  perhaps  flatters  herself  that  her  Cestus  will  preserve 
her  privilege,  while  she  gains  the  advantage  of  equality.     So 
much  poetry  has  been  addressed  to  her  that  she  may  well  be 
excused  for  not  forming  a  prosaic  estimate  of  the  probable 
results.     But  the  outspoken  Schopenhauer  has  told  her  that 
beauty  is  rarer  in  her  sex  than  in  the  other.     It  takes  more  to 
make  a  beautiful  woman  than  a  handsome  man.     Of  this  we 
may  be  sure,  that  the  attractions  of  women  generally  depend 
upon  their  being  women.     Mrs.  Mill,  be  it  observed,  remained 
a  woman.     If  she  had  put  on  her  wig  and  gown  to  go  into 
court  and  cross-examine  witnesses,  or  had  stood  against  her 
husband   for  Westminster,   we   should  have   seen   the   great 
experiment  really  tried.     That  she  has  had  social  advantages 
while  she  has  lain  under  political  disabilities,  woman,  espe- 
cially in  America,  can  hardly  deny;  her  sex  has  been  an  object 
of  respect,  sometimes  of  a  worship  almost  fatuous,  irrespective 
of  her  personal  qualities.     This  is  partly  traceable  to  histori- 
cal accident.     Jonathan  Oldbuck  is  a  cynic,  but  he  is  not  far 
wrong  in  saying  that  it  was  by  the  fantastic  imagination  of 
cliivalry  that  Dulcineas  were  exalted  into  despotic  goddesses. 
He  might  have  added  that  Mariolatry  had  played  its  part. 


WOMAN   SUFFRAGE.  235 

It  is  averred  that  women,  unless  they  share  political  power, 
cannot  take  an  interest  in  public  affairs.  It  has  even  been 
said  that  they  cannot  read  history.  That  they  can  not  only 
read  but  Avrite  history  experience  shows.  It  shows  also  that 
many  of  them  do  take  interest  in  public  affairs.  Apart  from 
politics  the  Avhole  field  of  charity,  benevolence,  and  social 
reform  invites  their  action.  In  it  they  have  produced  a  train 
of  worthies  such  as  Miss  Nightingale,  and  the  same  field  is  pre- 
ferred by  many  of  the  best  men,  who  shrink  from  the  political 
arena  in  its  present  state.  Politics,  after  all,  are  not  the 
greatest  part  of  life.  It  Avas  undei-  the  despotism  of  a  foreign 
conqueror  that  Christianity  came  into  the  world. 

The  far  western  State  of  Wj^oming,  the  mining  State  of 
Colorado,  and  New  Zealand  have  made  the  experiment  of 
AVoman's  Suffrage.  Let  them  fairly  try  it,  and  if  the  result 
is  good,  let  the  rest  of  the  world  follow.  In  every  field  of 
action,  except  that  of  politics,  use  is  made  of  experiment.  A 
new  engine  is  tested  before  it  is  put  on  all  the  railways  or  into 
all  the  steamships.  A  new  medicine,  hoAvever  promising,  is 
tried  in  one  or  two  cases  before  it  is  applied  universally.  If 
an  airship  were  invented,  aeronauts  would  be  called  upon  to 
prove  its  safety  before  all  the  world  ascended.  But  in  politics 
sweeping  changes  are  irrevocably  made  upon  the  strength  of 
what  even  an  advocate  of  the  change,  if  he  had  any  fairness  of 
mind,  would  allow  to  be  a  mere  balance  of  argument  in  its 
favour.  Had  extensions  of  the  suffrage,  or  changes  in  the 
form  of  local  government  been  tried  in  one  or  two  districts  or 
cities  first,  a  pause  of  salutary  reflection  might  have  ensued. 
But  political  changes,  for  the  most  part,  are  the  result  of  con- 
flict, not  of  reasoning;  of  the  desire  of  a  class  or  party  for 
power,  not  of  broad  conviction  as  to  the  public  good.  Woman's 
Suffrage  is  a  change  frauglit  with  the  most  mouu'utous  results, 
not  only  to  the  commonwealth,  but  to  tlio  household.  Let 
Wyoming,  Colorado,  and  New  Zealand  give  it  a  full  trial. 
The  success  of  the  Wyoming  experiment  is  publicly  pro- 
claimed, and  tlie  universe  is  exhorted  to  go  and  do  likewise 
by  Wyoming,    whose    voice    is    that    of    the    female    voters. 


236  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Other  accounts  are  not  so  favourable,^  nor  have  neighbouring 
States,  which  must  have  the  clearest  view  of  the  results,  been 
induced  to  follow  the  example.  In  Nebraska,  in  spite  of  a 
laborious  canvass  headed  by  Miss  Susan  B.  Anthony,  Woman 
Suffrage  was  defeated  by  two  to  one.^  To  Wyoming  and  Col- 
orado, Woman's  Suffrage  in  the  United  States  remains  confined. 
The  New  Zealand  experiment  will  be  more  satisfactory,  though 
New  Zealand,  having  no  warlike  neighbours,  does  not  run  the 
same  risk  in  emasculating  her  government  which  is  run  by 
a  European  State.  If  after  effectual  trial  it  appears  from 
tlie  experiments  that  legislation  and  government  have  become 
wiser,  more  far-sighted,  and  more  just,  without  any  detri- 
ment to  the  peace  and  order  of  the  home,  let  the  world 
follow  the  example,  and  be  grateful  to  those  by  whom  the  first 
experiment  was  made. 

At  the  present  juncture  in  Europe  sexual  revolution  would 
be  especially  perilous.  Among  other  things  tendency  to  the 
personal  ascendancy  of  great  demagogues,  which  has  shown 
itself  as  a  result  of  the  enfranchisement  of  masses  ignorant  of 
political  principles  and  questions,  could  not  fail  to  be  aggravated 
by  the  enfranchisement  of  all  the  women,  the  inclination  of  the 
sex  being  to  personal  rather  than  constitutional  government. 
In  Erance,  with  Woman  Suffrage,  the  Eepublic  could  hardly 
live. 

Mr.  Blair's  Eeport  ends  by  saying  that  men  can  have  no 
motive  for  refusing  the  suffrage  to  women  but  the  selfish  one 
of  unwillingness  to  part  with  half  of  the  sovereign  power. 
Selfishness  in  this  matter  would  undoubtedly  be  not  only 
wickedness  but  folly.  What  is  good  for  woman  is  good  in  the 
same  measure  for  man,  and  ought  not  to  be  withheld.  One 
lady  in  her  evidence  warns  Congress,  if  it  will  not  give  way, 
that  the  wild  enthusiasm  of  woman  can  be  used  for  evil  as  well 
as  good,  and  threatens  in  America  a  repetition  of  the  scenes  of 
the  French  Commune.  More  terrible  even  than  this  menace 
is  the  fear  of  doing  an  injury  to  man's  partner,  and  thereby  a 

1  See  the  paper  by  Governor  Crounse  of  Nebraska,  North  American 
Ttpview,  June,  1894.  "  Ibid. 


WOMAN   SUFFRACxE.  237 

deeper  injniy  to  man  himself.  But  tlie  change  ought  to  he 
proved  good.  Before  man  hands  over  the  government  to 
woman,  he  ouglit  to  be  satisfied  that  he  cannot  do  what  is  right 
himself.  In  an  age  of  "  flabby  "  sentiment  and  servile  worship 
of  change,  we  have  had  enough  of  weak  and  precipitate  sur- 
renders. It  was  to  weak  and  precipitate  surrender  that  the 
Avorld  owed  the  French  Revolution  and  the  deluge  of  calamity 
wliich  followed.  To  man,  as  he  alone  could  enforce  the  law, 
the  sovereign  power  came  naturally  and  righteously.  Let  him 
see  whether  he  cannot  make  a  just  use  of  it,  in  the  interest  of 
his  wife  and  children  as  well  as  in  his  own,  before  he  sends  in 
his  resignation. 

But  in  the  rage  of  the  universal  faction  fight  the  voice  of 
prudence  is  droAvned,  and  the  world  is  hurried  from  change  to 
change,  not  by  conviction,  but  by  the  exigencies  and  accidents 
of  tlie  party  strife.  A  New  Zealander,  writing  in  the  Fort- 
nightly Revieii],^  gives  us  his  account  of  tlie  way  in  which 
female  suffrage  was  carried.  Only  a  few  "wild  women,"  he 
says,  so  far  as  he  by  careful  inquiry  could  ascertain,  really 
desired  it,  though  thousands  were  induced  to  sign  the  petition. 
But  some  Conservative  politicians  thought  it  would  strengthen 
their  party.  The  Prohibitionists  —  never  caring  what  may 
happen  to  the  commonwealth  so  long  as  they  carry  their  own 
measure  —  were  most  strenuous  in  favour  of  the  change.  Thus 
the  measure  slipped  through  the  House  of  Representatives. 
It  would,  according  to  the  writer,  have  been  thrown  out  by  the 
Legislative  Council  had  not  one  or  two  of  the  members  of  that 
Council  Avished  to  embarrass  the  Ministry.  So  a  measure 
"  Avliich  no  one  but  a  few  fanatics  and  a  fcAV  Conservative  politi- 
cians reall}'  desired,  and  which  at  the  least  ninety-live  per  cent, 
of  the  population  neither  desired  nor  approved  of  Avas  passed 
into  law."  So  it  Avill  be  elsewhere,  and  a  political  change, 
far  more  momentous  than  any  extension  of  the  male  fran- 
chise, Avill  be  forced  on  one  community  after  another  by  the 
fanaticism  of  Prohibitionists,  aided  by  the  shifty  politicians, 
and  tlie  desire  or  fear  of  votes.     The  reception  of  Wyoming  as 

1  February,  1894. 


238  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

a  State  with  a  female  constitution  Avas  strongly  resisted  in 
Congi.-ess  and  was  carried,  it  is  believed,  through  the  need  felt 
by  a  political  party  of  two  more  Senatorial  votes.  Every 
demand  for  an  extension  of  the  suffrage  is  pretty  sure  in  like 
manner  to  prevail.  When  to  all  the  existing  masses  of  the 
electorate,  with  its  medley  of  sections,  interests,  and  agita- 
tions, has  been  added  the  whole  female  sex  with  emotions, 
passions,  objects,  and  issues  of  its  own,  and  with  the  new  order 
of  demagogism  to  which  it  is  sure  to  give  birth,  the  system  of 
demagogic  and  party  government  will  have  reached  its  climax, 
and  the  world  may  be  led  to  consider  whether  to  escape  con- 
fusion it  will  not  be  necessary  to  set  up  in  one  form  or  another 
a  strong,  stable,  and  impartial  government. 


THE  JEWISH   QUESTION. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION. 

Jewish  ascendancy  and  the  anti-Semitic  movement  provoked 
by  it  form  an  important  feature  of  the  European  situation,  and 
are  beginning  to  excite  attention  in  America.  Mr.  Arnold 
Wliite,  Baron  Hirsch's  commissioner,  says,  in  a  plea  for  the 
Russian  Jews,^  that  "almost  without  exception  the  press 
throughout  Europe  is  in  Jewish  hands,  and  is  largely  ^jroduced 
by  Jewish  brains";  that  "international  finance  is  captive  to 
Jewish  energy  and  skill " ;  that  in  England  the  fall  of  the 
Barings  has  left  the  house  of  Rothschild  alone  in  its  supremacy; 
and  that  in  every  line  the  Jews  are  fast  becoming  our  masters. 
Wind  and  tide,  in.  a  money-loving  age,  are  in  favour  of  the 
financial  race.  At  the  same  time  the  anti-Semitic  movement 
gains  ground.  From  Russia,  Germany,  Austria,  and  the  Dan- 
ubian  Principalities  it  spreads  to  the  Ionian  Islands;  it  lias 
broken  out  in  France ;  symptoms  of  it  have  appeared  even  in 
the  United  States.  Yet  thei'e  is  a  persistent  misapprehension 
of  the  real  nature  of  the  agitation.  It  is  assumed  that  the 
quarrel  is  religious.  The  anti-Semites  are  suj)posed  to  be  a 
party  of  fanatics  renewing  the  persecutions  to  which  the 
Jews  were  exposed  on  account  of  their  faith  in  the  dark  ages, 
and  every  one  who,  handling  the  question  critically,  fails  to 
show  undivided  sympathy  with  the  Israelites  is  set  down  as  a 
religious  persecutor.  The  Jews  naturally  foster  this  impres- 
sion, and,  as  Mr.  Arnold  White  tells  us,  the  press  of  Europe 
is  in  their  hands. 

In  1880,  anti-Semitic  disturbances  broke  out  in  Russia.  A 
narrative  of  them  entitled  "The  Persecution  of  the  Jews  in 

1  "The  Truth  about  the  Russian  Jew,"  in  the  Contemporary  lievicio, 
May,  1892. 

241  R 


242  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Eussia,"  ^  was  put  forth  by  the  Jewish  community  in  England 
as  an  appeal  to  the  British  heart.  In  that  narrative  the 
Russian  Christians  were  charged  with  having  committed  the 
most  fiendish  atrocities  on  the  most  enormous  scale.  A  tract 
of  country  equal  in  area  to  the  British  Islands  and  France 
combined  had,  it  was  averred,  been  the  scene  of  horrors  there- 
tofore perpetrated  only  in  times  of  war.  Men  had  been  ruth- 
lessly murdered,  tender  infants  had  been  dashed  on  the  stones 
or  roasted  alive  in  their  own  homes,  married  women  had  been 
made  the  prey  of  a  brutal  lust  which  had  in  many  cases  caused 
their  death,  and  young  girls  had  been  violated  in  sight  of  their 
relatives  by  soldiers  who  should  have  been  guardians  of  their 
honour.  Whole  streets  inhabited  by  Jews  had  been  razed,  and 
the  Jewish  quarters  of  towns  had  been  systematically  fired. 
In  one  place,  Elizabethgrad,  thirty  Jewesses  at  once  had  been 
outraged,  two  young  girls  in  dread  of  violation  had  thrown 
themselves  from  the  windows,  and  an  old  man,  who  was 
attempting  to  save  his  daughter  from  a  fate  worse  than  death, 
had  been  flung  from  the  roof,  while  twenty  soldiers  proceeded 
to  work  their  will  on  the  maiden.  This  was  a  sj)ecimen  of 
atrocities  which  had  been  committed  over  the  whole  area. 
The  most  atrocious  charge  of  all  was  that  against  the  Christian 
women  of  Eussia,  who  were  accused  of  assisting  their  friends 
to  violate  the  Jewesses  by  holding  the  victims  down,  their 
motive  being,  as  the  manifesto  suggests,  jealousy  of  the 
superiority  of  the  Jewesses  in  dress.  The  government  was 
charged  with  criminal  sympathy,  the  local  authorities  generally 
with  criminal  inaction,  and  some  of  the  troops  with  active 
participation. 

The  British  heart  responded  to  the  appeal.  Great  public 
meetings  were  held,  at  one  of  which  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, with  a  Eoman  Cardinal,  as  the  representative  of  religious 
liberty  in  general,  and  especially  of  opposition  to  Jew-burning, 
at  his  side,  denounced  the  persecuting  bigotry  of  the  Eussian 
Christians.     Indignant  addresses  were  largely  signed.     Eussia 

^Persecution   of  the  Jeios  in    Russia,    1881.      Keprinted   from    The 
Times. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  243 

was  accused  of  re-enacting  the  worst  crimes  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  It  was  taken  for  granted  on  all  sides  that  religious 
fanaticism  was  the  cause  of  the  riots. 

Russia,  as  usual,  was  silent.     But  the  British  government 
directed  its  consuls  at  the  different  points  to  report  upon  the 
facts.     The  reports  composed  two  Blue  Books,  ^  in  which,  as 
very  few  probably  took   the    pains   to    look   into   them,  the 
unpopular    truth    lies    buried.      Those    who    did   read    them 
learned,  in  the  first  place,  that  though  the  riots  were  deplor- 
able and  criminal,  the   Jewish   account   was   in   most   cases 
exaggerated,   and   in   some   to   an   extravagant   extent.     The 
damage  to  Jewish  property  at  Odessa,  rated  in  the  Jewish 
account  at  1,137,381  roubles,   or,   according  to  their  higher 
estimates,  3,000,000  roubles,  was  rated,  Consul-General  Stanley 
tells  us,  by  a  respectaible  Jew  on  the  spot  at  50,000  roubles, 
while   the    Consul-General   himself   rates    it   at   20,000.     At 
Elizabethgrad,  instead  of  whole   streets  being  razed  to  the 
ground,  only  one  hut  had  been  unroofed.      It  appeared  that 
few  Jews,  if  any,  had  been  intentionally  killed,  though  some 
died  of  injuries  received  in  the  riots.     There  were  conflicts 
between  the  Jews  who  defended  their  houses  and  the  rioters. 
The  outrages  on  women,  by  which  public  indignation  in  Eng- 
land had  been  most  fiercely  aroused,  and  of  which,  according 
to  the  Jewish  accounts,  there  had  been  a  frightful  number,  no 
less  than   thirty   in  one   place    and  twenty-five    in   another, 
appeared,  after  careful  inquiries  by  the  consuls,  to  have  been 
very  rare.     This   is  tlie  more  remarkable  because  the  riots 
commonly  began  with  the  sacking  of  the  gin  shops,  which  were 
kept  by  the  Jews,  so  that  the  passions  of  the  mob  must  have 
been  iiitlaiuod  by  drink.     The  horrible  charge  brought  in  the 
Jewish    manifesto    against   the    Russian   women,    of    having 
incited  men  to  outrage  Jewesses  and  held  the  Jewesses  down, 
is  found  to  be  utterly  baseless.     The  charge  of  roasting  cliil- 
dren  alive  also  falls  to  the  ground.     So  does  the  charge  of 
violating  a  Jew's  wife  and  then  setting  fire  to  his  house.     The 

1  CnrrcKpondence  respecting  the  Treatment  of  Jews  in  Eussia,  Nos.  1 
ami  2,  1882,  1883. 


244  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

Jewish  manifesto  states  that  a  Jewish  innkeeper  was  cooped 
in  one  of  liis  own  barrels  and  cast  into  the  Dnieper.  This 
turns  out  to  be  a  fable,  the  village  which  was  the  alleged  scene 
of  it  being  ten  miles  from  the  Dnieper  and  near  no  other  river 
of  consequence.  The  Russian  peasant,  Christian  though  he 
may  be,  is  entitled  to  justice.  As  a  rule,  while  ignorant  and 
often  intemperate,  he  is  good-natured.  There  was  much 
brutality  in  his  riot,  but  fiendish  atrocity  there  was  not,  and 
if  he  struck  savagely,  perhaps  he  had  suffered  long.  For  the 
belief  that  the  mob  was  "  doing  the  will  of  the  Tsar, "  in  other 
words,  that  the  government  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  rising, 
there  does  not  appear  to  have  been  a  shadow  of  foundation. 
The  action  of  the  authorities  was  not  in  all  cases  equally 
prompt.  In  some  cases  it  was  culpably  slack.  At  Warsaw 
the  commandant  held  back,  though  as  Lord  Granville,  the 
British  ambassador,  bears  witness,  his  motive  for  hesitation 
was  humanity.  But  many  of  the  rioters  were  shot  down  or 
bayoneted  by  the  troops,  hundreds  were  flogged,  some  were 
imprisoned,  and  some  were  sent  to  Siberia.  That  any  of  the 
military  took  part  m  the  riots  seems  to  be  a  fiction.  It  was 
not  likely  that  the  Russian  government,  menaced  as  it  is  by 
revolutionary  conspiracy,  would  encourage  insurrection.  Peo- 
ple of  the  upper  class,  who  fancied  that  in  the  agitation  they 
saw  the  work  of  Socialists,  though  they  might  dislike  the 
Jews,  would  hardly  sympathise  with  the  rioters.  Efforts  were 
made  by  the  government  to  restore  Jewish  property,  and  hand- 
some sums  were  subscribed  for  the  relief  of  the  sufferers.  Yet 
those  who,  while  they  heartily  condemned  outrage,  were  will- 
ing to  accept  proof  that  the  Christian  men  and  women  of 
Russia  had  not  behaved  like  demons,  were  saluted  as  modern 
counterparts  of  Hainan  by  an  eminent  Rabbi,  who,  if  the 
objects  of  his  strictures  had  cared  to  retort,  might  have  been 
asked  whether  the  crucifixion  of  Haman's  ten  sons  and  the 
slaughter  of  seventy-five  thousand  of  the  enemies  of  Israel  in 
one  day,  which,  after  the  lapse  of  so  many  centuries,  the  feast 
of  Purim  still  joyously  commemorates,  were  not  horrors  as 
great  as  any  which  have  been  sliown  to  have  actually  occurred 
at  Odessa  or  Elizabethgrad. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  245 

The  most  important  part  of  the  evidence  given  in  the  con- 
suls' rejjorts,  liowever,  is  that  which  relates  to  the  cause  of 
the  troubles.  At  Warsaw,  where  the  people  are  Roman  Catho- 
lics, there  appears  to  have  been  a  certain  amount  of  passive 
sympathy  with  the  insurgents  on  religious  grounds.  But 
everywhere  else  the  concurrent  testimony  of  the  consuls  is 
that  the  source  of  the  agitation  was  economical  and  social,  not 
religious.  Bitterness  produced  by  the  exactions  of  the  Jew, 
envy  of  his  wealth,  irritation  at  the  display  of  it  in  such  things 
as  the  fine  dresses  of  his  women,  jealousy  of  his  ascendancy, 
combined  in  the  lowest  of  the  mob  with  the  love  of  plunder, 
were  the  motives  of  the  people  for  attacking  him,  not  hatred  of 
his  faith.  Vice-Consul  Wagstaff,  who  seems  to  have  paid  par- 
ticular attention  to  the  question  and  made  the  most  careful 
in(|uiry,  after  paying  a  tribute  to  the  sober,  laborious,  thrifty 
character  and  the  superior  intelligence  of  the  Jew,  and  ascrib- 
ing to  these  his  increasing  monopoly  of  commerce,  proceeds : 

"It  is  chiefly  as  brokers  or  middlemen  tliat  the  Jews  are  so  promi- 
nent. Seldom  a  business  transaction  of  any  kind  takes  place  without 
their  intervention,  and  from  both  sides  they  receive  compensation.  To 
enumerate  some  of  their  other  occupations,  constantly  denounced  by  the 
public :  they  are  the  principal  dealers  in  spirits  ;  keepers  of  '  vodka ' 
(drinking)  shops  and  houses  of  ill-fame  ;  receivers  of  stolen  goods  ; 
illt!gal  pawnbrokers  and  usurers.  A  branch  they  also  succeed  in  is  as 
government  contractors.  With  their  knowledge  of  handling  money,  they 
collude  with  unscrupulous  officials  in  defrauding  the  State  to  vast  amounts 
annually.  In  fact,  the  malpractices  of  some  of  the  Jewish  community 
have  a  bad  influence  on  those  whom  they  come  in  contact  with.  It  must, 
however,  be  said  that  there  are  many  well  educated,  highly  respectable, 
and  houdurable  Jews  in  Russia,  but  tliey  form  a  small  minority.  This 
class  is  not  treated  upon  in  this  paper.  They  thoroughly  condemn  the 
occupations  of  their  lower  brethren,  and  one  of  the  results  of  the  late 
disturbances  is  noticed  in  the  movement  at  present  amongst  the  Jews. 
They  themselves  acknowledge  the  abuses  practised  by  some  of  their  own 
members,  and  suggest  remedial  measures  to  allay  the  irritation  existing 
among  the  working  classes. 

"  Another  thing  the  Jews  are  accused  of  is  that  there  exists  among 
them  a  system  of  boycotting  ;  they  use  their  religion  for  business  pur- 
poses.    This  is  expressed  by  the  words  '  koul,'  or  '  kagal,'  and  '  kherim.' 


246  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

For  instance,  in  Bessarabia,  the  produce  of  a  vineyard  is  drawn  for  by- 
lot,  and  falls,  say  to  Jabob  Levy  ;  the  other  Jews  of  the  district  cannot 
compete  with  Levy,  who  buys  the  wine  at  his  own  price.  In  the  leasing 
by  auction  of  government  and  provincial  lands,  it  is  invariably  a  Jew 
who  outbids  the  others  and  afterwards  re-lets  plots  to  the  peasantry  at 
exorbitant  prices.  Very  crying  abuses  of  farming  out  land  have  lately 
come  to  light  and  greatly  shocked  public  opinion.  Again,  where  estates 
are  farmed  by  Jews,  it  is  distressing  to  see  the  pitiable  condition  in 
which  they  are  handed  over  on  the  expiration  of  the  lease.  Experience 
also  shows  they  are  very  bad  colonists. 

"  Their  fame  as  usurers  is  well  known.  Given  a  Jewish  recruit  with 
a  few  roubles'  capital,  it  can  be  worked  out,  mathematically,  what  time  it 
will  take  him  to  become  the  money-lender  of  his  company  or  regiment, 
from  the  drummer  to  the  colonel.  Take  the  case  of  a  peasant :  if  he 
once  gets  into  the  hands  of  this  class,  he  is  irretrievably  lost.  The  pro- 
prietor, in  his  turn,  from  a  small  loan  gradually  mortgages  and  eventually 
loses  his  estate.  A  great  deal  of  landed  property  in  south  Russia  has  of 
late  years  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  Israelites,  but  principally  into  the 
hands  of  intelligent  and  sober  peasants. 

"  From  first  to  last,  the  Jew  has  his  hand  in  everything.  He  advances 
the  seed  for  sowing,  which  is  generally  returned  in  kind  —  quarters  for 
bushels.  As  harvest  time  comes  round,  money  is  required  to  gather  in 
the  crops.  This  is  sometimes  advanced  on  hard  conditions  ;  but  the 
peasant  has  no  choice  ;  there  is  no  one  to  lend  him  money,  and  it  is 
better  to  secure  something  than  to  lose  all.  Very  often  the  Jew  buys  the 
whole  crop  as  it  stands  in  the  field  on  his  own  terms.  It  is  thus  seen 
that  they  themselves  do  not  raise  agricultural  products,  but  they  reap  the 
benefits  of  others'  labour,  and  steadily  become  rich,  while  proprietors  are 
gi-adually  getting  ruined.  In  their  relation  to  Russia  they  are  compared 
to  parasites  that  have  settled  on  a  plant  not  vigorous  enough  to  throw 
them  off,  and  which  is  being  sapped  of  its  vitality."  i 

The  peasants,  the  vice-consul  tells  us,  often  say,  when  they 
look  at  the  property  of  a  Jew,  "That  is  my  blood."  In  con- 
firmation of  his  view  he  cites  the  list  of  demands  formulated 
by  the  peasants  and  laid  before  a  mixed  committee  of  inquiry 
into  the  causes  of  the  disorder.  These  demands  are  all 
economical  or  social,  with  the  exception  of  the  complaint  that 
Russian  girls  in  Jewish  service  forget  their  religion  and  with 

1  Correspondence  respecting  the  Treatment  of  Jews  in  Russia,  No.  1, 
l)p.  11,  12. 


THE   JEWISH  QUESTION.  247 

it  lose  their  morals.  Everything,  in  short,  seems  to  bear  out 
the  statement  of  the  Russian  Minister  of  the  Interior,  in  a 
manifesto  given  in  the  Blue  Book,  that  "the  movement  had  its 
main  cause  in  circumstances  purely  economical " ;  provided 
that  to  "economical"  we  add." social,"  and  inchide  all  that  is 
meant  by  the  phrase  "hatred  of  Jewish  usurpation,"  used  in 
another  document. 

Vice-Consul  Harford,  at  Sebastopol,  is  in  contact  with  the 
Jews  of  the  Crimea,  who,  he  says,  are  of  a  superior  order, 
while  some  of  them  are  not  Talmudic  Jews,  but  belong  to  the 
mild  and  Scriptural  sect  of  the  Karaites.  He  says  that  in  his 
quarter  all  goes  well. 

"The  spirit  of  antagonism  that  animates  the  Russian  against  tlie  Jew 
is,  in  my  opinion,  in  no  way  to  be  traced  to  the  difference  of  creed.  In 
this  part  of  Russia,  wliere  we  have  more  denominations  of  religion  than 
in  any  otlier  part,  I  liave  never,  during  a  residence  of  fourteen  years, 
observed  tlie  slightest  indication  or  sectarianism  in  any  class.  The  peas- 
ant, though  ignorant  and  superstitious,  is  so  entirely  free  from  bigotry 
that  even  the  openly  displayed  contempt  of  the  fanatical  Mohammedan 
Crim  Tartar  for  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  Russian  Church  fails 
to  excite  in  him  the  slightest  feeling  of  personal  animosity ;  his  own 
feeling  with  regard  to  other  religions  is  perfect  indifference  ;  he  enters  a 
mosque  or  synagogue  just  as  he  would  enter  a  theatre,  and  regards  the 
ceremony  in  much  the  same  manner  that  an  English  peasant  would, 
neither  knowing  nor  caring  to  know  whether  they  worshipped  God  or  the 
moon.  As  it  is  evident  from  this  that  race  and  creed  are  to  the  minds  of 
the  peasantry  of  no  more  consequence  than  they  would  be  to  a  Zulu,  the 
only  conclusion  is  that  tiie  antipathy  is  against  the  usurer,  and  as  civil- 
isation can  only  be  expected  to  influence  the  rising  generation  of  Russian 
peasantry,  tlie  remedy  rests  with  the  Jew,  who,  if  he  will  not  refrain 
from  speculating  (in  lawless  parts  of  the  Empire)  on  ignorance  and 
drunkenness,  must  be  prepared  to  defend  himself  and  his  property  from 
the  certain  and  natural  result  of  such  a  policy."  i 

All  this  confirms  the  statement  of  M.  Pierre  Botkine,  Secre- 
tary of  the  Kussian  Legation  in  Washington,  who,  writing  in 
the  Century  Mwjazine,'^  says: 

1  Correspondence  respecting  the  Treatment  of  Jews  m  Bussia,  No.  2,  p.  17. 

2  February,  1893. 


248  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

"  Replying  to  the  accusation  against  Russia  in  tlie  matter  of  an  alleged 
religious  intolerance,  I  must  first  point  out  a  great  error  I  have  repeatedly 
encountered  here.  The  promulgation  of  the  laws  and  regulations  against 
the  laws  is  being  generally  ascribed  in  America  to  persecution  on  the  part 
of  the  Orthodox  Church.  But  the  Hebi'ew  question  in  Russia  is  neither 
religious  nor  political ;  it  is  purely  an  economical  and  administrative 
question.  The  actual  meaning  of  the  anti-Semitic  measures  prescribed  by 
our  government  is  not  animosity  to  the  religion  of  the  Jews  ;  neither  are 
those  measures  a  deliberate  hunting  down  of  the  feeble  by  the  powerful ; 
they  are  an  effort  to  relieve  the  Empire  of  the  injurious  struggle  against 
those  particular  traits  of  Hebrew  character  that  were  obstructing  the 
progress  of  our  people  along  their  own  line  of  natural  development.  It 
may  be  said  in  general,  that  the  anti-Semitic  movement  in  Russia  is  a 
demonstration  by  the  non-Hebraic  part  of  the  population  against 
tendencies  of  Hebrews  which  have  characterised  them  the  world  over,  and 
to  which  they  adhere  in  Russia. 

"  The  Hebrew,  as  we  know  him  in  Russia,  is  '  the  eternal  Jew.'  With- 
out a  country  of  his  own,  and,  as  a  rule,  without  any  desire  to  become 
identified  with  the  country  he  for  the  time  inherits,  he  remains,  as 
for  hundreds  of  years  he  has  been,  morally  unchangeable  and  without  a 
faculty  for  adapting  himself  to  sympathy  with  the  people  of  the  race 
which  surrounds  him.  He  is  not  homogeneous  with  us  in  Russia ;  he 
does  not  feel  or  desire  solidarity  with  us.  In  Russia  he  remains  a  guest 
only,  —  a  guest  from  long  ago,  and  not  an  integral  part  of  the  commu- 
nity. When  these  guests  without  affinity  became  too  many  in  Russia, 
when  in  serious  localities  their  numbers  were  found  injurious  to  the  wel- 
fare and  the  prosperity  of  our  own  people  as  a  whole,  when  they  had 
grown  into  many  wide-spreading  ramifications  of  influence  and  power, 
and  abused  their  opportunities  as  traders  with  or  lenders  of  money  to 
the  poor,  —  when,  in  a  word,  they  became  dangerous  and  prejudicial 
to  our  people,  — is  there  anything  revolting  or  surprising  in  the  fact  that 
our  government  found  it  necessary  to  restrict  their  activity  ?  We  did  not 
expel  the  Jews  from  the  Empire,  as  is  often  mistakenly  charged,  though 
we  did  restrict  their  rights  as  to  localities  of  domicile  and  as  to  kinds  of 
occupations  • — police  reputations.  Is  it  just  that  those  who  have  never  had 
to  confront  such  a  situation  should  blame  us  for  those  measures  ?  " 

Whatever  may  be  said  against  the  restrictions  as  to  residence 
and  occupation  hiid  on  the  Jews  in  Eussia,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  policy  or  humanity,  it  seems  certain  that  their  aim  is 
economical  and  social,  not  religious.  They  fall  under  the 
same  head  with  measures  taken  by  the  people  of  the  United 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  249 

States  to  guard  their  nationality  and  their  character  against  the 
invasion  of  the  Chinese.     There  is  apparently  no  expulsion  of 
Jews  from  the  provinces  of  Russia  which  were  originally  their 
chief  settlements,  and  which  they  have  hitherto  been  jDermitted 
by  law  to  inhabit.     They  are  only  forbidden  to  spread  and 
extend  their  financial  operations  over  the  rest  of  the  Empire. 
Persecution  is  not  the  tendency  of  the  Russian  or  of  the 
Church  to  which  he  belongs.     The  Eastern  Church,  while  it 
has  been  superstitious  and  somewhat  torpid,  has  been  tolerant, 
and,  compared  with  other  orthodox  churches,  free  from  the 
stain  of  persecution.     It  has  not  been  actively  proselytising, 
nor   sent  forth  crusaders,    unless  the  name  of   crusades   can 
be  given  to  the  wars  with  the  Turks,  the  main  motive  for 
which,  though  the  pretext  may  have  been  religious,  probably 
has  been  territorial  ambition,  and  which  were  certainly  not 
crusades  when  waged  by  Catherine,  the  patroness  of  Diderot 
and  the  correspondent  of  Voltaire.     This  is  the  more  remark- 
able because  the  Russians  had  a  struggle  for  their  land  wdth 
the    Tartars    like   that   which    Spain    had   with    the    Moors. 
Stanley,  in  his  "Eastern  Church,"  dilates  upon  this  character- 
istic of  the  Eastern  Christians.     He  says  that  "a  respectful 
reverence   for   every   manifestation    of   religious   feeling  has 
withheld  them  from  violent  attacks  on  the  rights  of  conscience 
and  led  them  to  extend  a  kindly  patronage  to  forms  of  faith 
most  removed  from  their  own";  and  he  notices  that  the  great 
philosophers  of  antiquity  are  honoured  by  portraits  in  their 
churches  as  heralds  of  the  gospel.^     Sir  Mackenzie  Wallace, 
who  is  the  best  authority,  while  he  admits  the  inferiority  of 
the  Russian  priests  in  education,  testifies  to  their  innocence  of 
persecution,  saying  that  "if  they  have  less  learning,  culture, 
and  refinement  than  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood,  they  have 
at  the  same  time  infinitely  less  fanaticism,  less  spiritual  pride, 
and  less  intolerance  towards  the  adherents  of  other  faiths."  ^ 
The  educated  classes  he  represents  as  generally  indifferent  to 

1  Lectures  nn  the  History  of  the  Eastern  Church,  3d  edition,  p.  35.    By 
Arthur  Penrhyii  Stanley,  D.D. 

2  liussia,  pp.  58,  59.     By  Sir  D.  Mackenzie  Wallace,  M.A. 


250  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

theological  questions.  The  peasantry  are  superstitious  and 
blindly  attached  to  their  own  faith,  which  they  identify  with 
their  nationality;  but  they  think  it  natural  and  right  that  a 
man  of  a  different  nationality  should  have  a  different  religion. 
In  jSrijui-ISTovgorod,  the  city  of  the  great  fair,  the  Mahometan 
Mosque  or  the  Armenian  church  and  the  Orthodox  cathedral 
stand  side  by  side.^  At  one  end  of  a  village  is  the  church,  at 
the  other  the  mosque,  and  the  Mahometan  spreads  his  prayer- 
carpet  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer  full  of  Orthodox  Russians. 

The  ecclesiastical  constitution  of  Russia  is  incompatible 
with  religious  equality,  and  therefore  with  full  religious 
liberty.  The  Tsar  is  practically,  though  not  theoretically, 
head  of  the  Church  as  well  as  of  the  State;  the  commander  of 
Holy  Russia  as  a  Caliph  is  the  Commander  of  the  Eaithful. 
In  the  interest  rather  of  national  unity  than  of  religious  ortho- 
doxy he  restrains  dissent.  But  it  is  against  innovation  and 
schism  within  the  pale  of  the  State  Church  rather  than  against 
misbelief  that  his  poAver  has  been  exerted.  Some  Tsars,  such 
as  Peter  the  Great  and  the  Tsarina  Catherine  II.,  have  been 
Liberals,  and  have  patronised  merit  without  regard  to  creed. 
Nicholas  was  full  of  orthodox  sentiment  and  in  all  things  a 
martinet,  yet  Sir  Mackenzie  Wallace  has  a  pleasant  anecdote 
of  his  commending  the  Jewish  sentinel  at  his  door  who  con- 
scientiously refused  to  respond  to  the  Tsar's  customary  salu- 
tation on  Easter  Day.  No  Tsar,  however  bigoted,  has  been 
guilty  of  such  persecution  as  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  Perdinand  of 
Austria,  or  Louis  XIV.  Russia  has  had  no  Inquisition.  That 
the  Jews  have  had  liberty  of  worship  and  education,  the  exist- 
ence of  6319  synagogues  and  of  77  Jewish  schools  supported 
by  the  State,  besides  1165  private  and  communal  schools,  seems 
clearly  to  prove. ^  It  does  not  seem  to  be  alleged  that  any 
attempt  has  been  made  by  the  government  at  forcible  conver- 
sion. Whatever  may  have  been  the  harshness  or  even  cruelty 
of  tlie  measures  which  it  has  taken  to  confine  the  Jews  to  their 
original  districts  and  prevent  their  spreading  over  its  domin- 

1  See  Hare's  Studies  in  Bussia,  p.  360. 

2  Statesman's  Year-Book,  1891,  pp.  854-856. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  251 

ions,  its  object  appears  to  have  been  to  protect  the  people 
against  economical  oppression  and  preserve  the  national  char- 
acter from  being  sapped  by  an  alien  influence,  not  to  suppress 
the  Jewish  religion.  The  law  excluding  the  Jews  from  Great 
"Russia  in  fact  belongs  to  the  same  category  as  the  law  of  the 
United  States  excluding  the  Chinese. 

That  Christian  fanaticism  at  all  events  was  not  the  sole 
source  of  the  unpopularity  of  the  Jews  might  have  been 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  the  relation  was  no  better  between 
the  Jew  and  the  heathen  races  during  the  period  of  declining 
polytheism,  when  religious  indifference  prevailed  and  beneath 
the  vast  dome  of  the  Roman  Empire  the  religions  of  many 
nations  slept  and  mouldered  side  by  side.  Gibbon,  well  quali- 
fied to  speak,  for  he  was  himself  a  citizen  of  the  Roman 
Empire  in  sentiment,  after  narrating  the  massacres  committed 
by  the  Jews  on  the  Gentiles  in  Africa  and  Cyprus,  has 
expressed  in  flamboyant  phrase  the  hatred  of  the  Roman  world 
for  the  Jews,  whom  he  designates  as  the  "  implacable  enemies, 
not  only  of  the  Roman  government  but  of  human  kind."^ 
Tacitus  speaks  of  the  Jews  as  enemies  of  all  races  but  their 
own  (ddversus  omnes  alios  hostile  odium),^  and  Juvenal,  in  a 
well-known  passage,  speaks  of  them  as  people  who  would  not 
show  a  wayfarer  his  road  or  guide  the  thirsty  to  a  spring  if  he 
were  not  of  their  own  faith.  Those  who  maintain  that  there 
is  nothing  in  the  character,  habits,  or  disposition  of  the  Jew 
to  provoke  antipathy  have  to  bring  the  charge  of  fanatical 
prejudice  not  only  against  the  Russians  or  against  Christen- 
dom, but  against  mankind. 

In  Germany,  in  Austria,  in  Roumania,  in  all  the  countries  of 
Europe  where  tliis  deplorable  contest  of  races  is  going  on,  the 
cause  of  quarrel  appears  to  be  fundamentally  the  same.  It 
appears  to  be  economical  and  social,  not  religious,  or  religious 

^  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Chap.  xvi.  "In  Cyrene," 
Gibbon  says,  "they  massacred  220,000  Greeks;  in  Cyprus,  240,000," 
citini;  Dion  Cassias  (I.,  Ixviii.,  p.  114")),  whose  account,  as  regards  num- 
bers at  all  events,  must  be  greatly  exaggerated. 

2  Hist,  v.,  V. 


252  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

only  in  a  secondary  degree.  Mr.  Baring-Gould  tells  us  that  in 
Germany  "  there  is  scarce  a  village  without  some  Jews  in  it, 
who  do  not  cultivate  land  themselves,  but  lie  in  wait  like 
spiders  for  the  failing  Bauer."  ^  A  German  who  knew  the 
peasantry  well  said  to  Mr.  Gould  that  "he  doubted  whether 
there  were  a  happier  set  of  people  under  the  sun ;  "  but  he 
added,  after  a  pause,  "  so  long  as  they  are  out  of  the  clutch  of 
the  Jew."  2  Of  the  German,  as  well  as  of  the  Eussian,  it  may 
be  said  that  he  is  not  a  religious  persecutor.  If  persecution  of 
a  sanguinary  or  atrocious  kind  has  sullied  his  annals,  the  arm 
of  it  was  the  house  of  Austria,  with  its  Spanish  connection, 
and  the  head  was  the  world-roving  Jesuit.  In  the  case  of 
Hungary,  Mr.  Paget,  who  is  a  Liberal  and  advocates  a  Liberal 
policy  towards  the  Jews,  says :  "  The  Jew  is  no  less  active  in 
proiiting  by  the  vices  and  necessities  of  the  peasant  than  by 
those  of  the  noble.  As  sure  as  he  gains  a  settlement  in  a 
village  the  peasantry  become  poor." ^  "In  Austrian  Poland," 
says  a  Times  reviewer,  "the  worst  of  the  peasant's  sluggish 
content  is  that  it  has  given  him  over  to  the  exactions  of  the 
Jews."  "The  Jews,"  he  adds,  "are  in  fact  the  lords  of  the 
country."  They  are  lords  not  less  alien  to  the  people  than 
the  Norman  was  to  the  Saxon,  and  perhaps  not  always  more 
merciful,  though  in  their  hands  is  the  writ  of  ejection  instead 
of  the  conqueror's  sword. 

If  we  cross  the  Mediterranean  the  same  thing  meets  us.  In 
Thomson's  "Morocco,"  we  read: 

"  As  money-lenders  the  Jews  are  as  maggots  and  parasites,  aggravating 
and  feeding  on  the  diseases  of  the  land.  I  do  not  know,  for  my  part, 
which  exercises  the  greatest  tyranny  and  oppression,  the  Sultan  or  the 
Jew,  —  the  one  the  embodiment  of  the  foulest  misgovernment,  the  other 
the  essence  of  a  dozen  Shylocks,  demanding,  ay,  and  getting,  not  only 
his  pound  of  flesh,  but  also  the  blood  and  nerves.  By  his  outrageous 
exactions  the  Sultan  drives  the  Moor  into  the  hands  of  the  Jew,  who 
affords  him  a  temporary  relief  by  lending  him  the  necessary  money  on 

1  Germany  Present  and  Past,Yo\.  I.,  p.  114.    By  S.  Baring-Gould,  M.A. 

2  7?>.,p.  127. 

8  Hungary  and  Transylvania,  Vol.  I.,  p.  136.     By  John  Paget. 


THE  JEWISH   QUESTION.  253 

incredibly  exorbitant  terms.  Once  in  the  money-lender's  clutches,  he 
rarely  escapes  till  he  is  squeezed  dry,  when  he  is  either  thrown  aside, 
crushed  and  ruined,  or  cast  into  a  dungeon,  where,  fettered  and  starved, 
he  is  probably  left  to  die  a  slow  and  horrible  death. 

"  To  the  position  of  the  Jews  in  Morocco  it  would  be  difficult  to  find 
a  parallel.  Here  we  have  a  people  alien,  despised,  and  hated,  actually 
living  in  the  country  under  immeasurably  better  conditions  than  the 
dominant  race,  while  they  suck,  and  are  assisted  to  suck,  the  very  life- 
blood  of  their  hosts.  The  aim  of  every  Jew  is  to  toil  not,  neither  to 
spin,  save  the  coils  which  as  money-lender  he  may  weave  for  the  entan- 
glement of  his  necessitous  victims."  ^ 

Even  if  we  cross  the  Atlantic  we  find  the  same  phenomenon. 
Mr.  Olmsted,  in  his  "Cotton  Kingdom,"  says  : 

"  A  swarm  of  Jews  has  within  the  last  ten  years  settled  in  nearly 
every  Southern  town,  many  of  them  men  of  no  character,  opening  cheap 
clothing  and  trinket  shops,  ruining  or  driving  out  of  business  many  of 
the  old  retailers,  and  engaging  in  an  unlawful  trade  with  the  simple 
negroes,  which  is  found  very  profitable."  ^ 

And  again : 

"If  his  [the  planter's]  first  crop  proves  a  bad  one  he  must  borrow 
money  of  the  Jews  at  New  Orleans  to  pay  his  first  note.  They  will  sell 
him  this  on  the  best  terms  they  can,  often  at  not  less  than  twenty-five 
per  cent,  per  annum."  ^ 

Mr.  Stevenson  says  of  the  Jews  in  San  Francisco : 

' '  Jew  storekeepers  have  already  learned  the  advantage  to  be  gained 
from  this  [unlimited  credit]  ;  they  lead  on  the  farmer  into  irretrievable 
indebtedness,  and  keep  him  ever  after  as  their  bond-slave  hopelessly 
grinding  in  the  mill.  So  the  whirligig  of  time  brings  in  its  revenges,  and 
except  that  the  Jew  knows  better  than  to  foreclose,  you  may  see  Ameri- 
cans bound  in  the  same  chains  with  which  they  themselves  had  formerly 
bound  the  Mexicans."  * 

1  Travels  in  the  Atlas  and  So^ithern  Morocco:  A  Narrative  of  Explo- 
ration, pp.  418,  419.     By  Joseph  Thomson,  F.ll.G.S. 

2  Journeys  and  Explorations  in  the  Cotton  Kingdom,  2d  edition,  pp. 
252,  253.     By  Frederick  Law  Olmsted. 

3  lb.,  pp.  321,  322. 

^  Across  the  Plains,  p.  100.     By  Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 


254  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

These  passages  were  not  intended  by  the  writers,  nor  are 
they  here  cited,  as  general  pictures  of  the  Jews,  or  as  pictures 
of  Jews  exclusively.  In  the  last,  American  sharp  practice  is 
included.  The  passages  are  cited  as  indications  of  the  real 
source  of  the  antagonism  tending  to  show  that  it  is  economical 
not  religious.-^ 

Light  dawned  on  the  writer's  mind  touching  this  question 
when  he  had  been  listening  with  sympathy  to  speeches  in  the 
British  House  of  Commons  on  the  anti-Semitic  movement  in 
Roumania,  where,  as  in  Russia,  the  number  of  Jews  is  particu- 
larly large  and  the  feeling  against  them  is  proportionately 
intense.  The  Jewish  member  who  appealed  to  the  government 
on  the  subject,  and  the  Minister  who  rose  in  response  to  the 
appeal,  had  both  of  them  assumed  that  it  was  a  case  of  reli- 
gious persecution,  and  the  Minister  especially  had  dwelt  on 
the  mischievous  influence  of  ecclesiastics;  with  how  little 
justice,  so  far  as  the  priests  of  the  Eastern  Church  are  con- 
cerned, we  have  already  seen.  The  debate  over,  the  writer 
was  accosted  by  his  friend,  the  late  Dr.  Humphry  Sandwith, 
distinguished  for  his  share  in  the  defence  of  Kars  against  the 
Russians,  who  knew  tlie  Danubian  Principalities  well.  Dr. 
Sandwith  said  that  the  speakers  had  been  entirely  mistaken; 
that  religion  was  not  the  motive  of  the  agitation;  that  neither 
the  people  nor  their  priests  were  given  to  persecution;  that 
the  government  had  granted  aid  to  a  synagogue;  but  that 
Jewish  usurers  got  the  simple-minded  peasants  into  their  toils 
and  sold  them  out  of  their  homesteads  till  the  peasants  would 
bear  it  no  longer,  and  an  outbreak  ensued.  Dr.  Sandwith^ 
being  a  thorough-going  Liberal,  would  have  been  the  last  man 
to  palliate  religious  persecution. 

1  "  In  India,"  says  Professor  Ashley,  "  the  village  usurer  is  constantly 
a  source  of  trouble  to  the  administration  ;  all  over  Central  and  South- 
eastern Europe  he  is  a  curse  to  every  district  to  which  he  comes  ;  and  in 
Austria  and  Russia  his  mischievous  energy  is  one  of  the  main  causes  of 
the  anti-Semitic  movement." — Afi  Introduction  to  Enrjlish  Economic 
History  and  Theory,  Part  II.,  p.  436. 


THE  JEWISH   QUESTION.  255 

It  is  doubtful  whether,  even  in  the  Middle  Ages,  the  quarrel 
was  not  less  religious  and  more  economical  or  social  than  is 
supposed.  That  was  the  age  of  religious  intolerance;  Chris- 
tian heretics,  such  as  the  Albigenses,  were  persecuted  with 
fully  as  much  cruelty  as  the  Jews.  Jews  who  had  ventured 
to  settle  in  the  Catholic  communities  for  the  sake  of  gain, 
braved  the  same  sort  of  peril  which  would  have  been  braved 
by  an  enterprising  trader  who  had  thrust  himself  into  Japan 
during  its  close  period.  But  as  a  rule,  though  they  were  hated, 
they  were  not  persecuted ;  they  were  tolerated  and  allowed  to 
build  their  synagogues  and  worship  God  in  their  own  way. 
They  were  regarded,  not  like  heretics,  as  religious  traitors, 
but  as  religious  aliens.  Their  religious  blindness,  as  well  as 
their  penal  homelessness,  was  viewed  as  the  act  of  God.  They 
were  privileged  in  misbelief.  Aquinas  expressly  lays  it  down 
that  they  are  to  be  tolerated  as  a  useful  testimony  borne, 
though  by  adversaries,  to  the  truth  of  Christianity.^  It  is  not 
true  that  the  great  Doctor  of  the  Middle  Ages  sanctions  the 
forcible  conversion  of  the  children  of  Jews.  He  raises  the 
question  and  decides  it  in  the  negative. ^  An  argument  stated 
by  him  only  to  be  set  aside  has  been  taken  for  his  conclusion. 
In  the  "Corpus  Juris  Canonici"  it  is  laid  down  that  Jews 
shall  not  be  baptised  against  their  will  or  inclination,  since 
enforced  baptism  does  not  make  a  Christian.  Their  persons 
are  to  be  secure  from  violence,  their  graves  from  spoliation, 
their  customary  rights  from  invasion,  their  festivals  from 
interruption,  their  servants  from  abduction,  their  cemeteries 
from  profanation.^ 

By  the  kings,  and  notably  by  the  Angevin  kings  of  England, 
the  Jews  were  protected  as  the  agents  of  royal  extortion,  suck- 
ing by  usury  the  money  from  the  people  which  was  afterwards 
squeezed  out  of  the  usurer  by  the  king.  Of  the  common 
people  it  is  not,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  tendency  to  persecute 
on  account  of  religion,  however  superstitious  they  may  be.     It 

1  Summa  Tlu'ohxjica,  Secunda  Secmidoi,  Qua3St.  X.,  Art.  xi. 

2  Ih.,  Art.  xii. 

^  Decret.  airy.,  Lib.  V.,  Tit.  vi. 


256  QUESTIONS  OF  THE   DAY. 

is  rather  by  the  possessors  of  ecclesiastical  power  and  Avealth, 
by  Archbishops  of  Toledo  and  Prince  Bishops  of  Germany, 
whom  dissent  threatens  with  dispossession,  or  by  kings  like 
Philip  II.  and  Louis  XIV.,  under  priestly  influence,  that  the 
engines  of  persecution  are  set  at  work.  At  the  time  of  the 
Crusades,  Christian  fanaticism  being  excited  to  frenzy,  there 
were  dreadful  massacres  of  Jews,  and  forced  conversions, 
though  no  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the  figures  of  medieval 
chroniclers,  who  set  down  at  random  twenty  thousand  victims 
slain,  or  two  hundred  thousand  forced  conversions.  The  Jew 
at  that  time  was  odious  not  only  as  a  misbeliever  in  the  midst 
of  the  Christian  camp,  whose  presence  would  turn  from  it  the 
countenance  of  God,  but  as  a  suspected  friend  and  ally  at  heart 
of  the  Oriental  power.  The  Jews  must  have  foreseen  the 
storm,  and  might  have  escaped  by  flight,  but  they  were  per- 
haps tempted  by  the  vast  harvest  afforded  them  in  the  general 
sale  of  possessions  by  the  Crusaders  to  buy  equipments,  while 
by  that  traffic  their  unpopularity  was  increased.  In  ordinary 
times  the  main  causes  of  the  hatred  of  the  Jews  among  the 
common  people  appear  to  have  been  usury  and  a  social 
arrogance,  which  was  particularly  galling  on  the  part  of  the 
alien  and  the  enemy  of  Christ.  In  the  riots  the  people  made 
for  the  place  in  which  the  Jewish  bonds  were  kept.  At  York, 
the  scene  of  the  worst  anti-Jewish  riot  in  England,  the  chroni- 
cler tells  us  there  were  two  Jews,  Benedict  and  Joce,  who  had 
built  in  the  middle  of  the  city  houses  like  palaces,  where  they 
dwelt  like  princes  of  their  own  people  and  tyrants  of  the 
Christians,  keeping  almost  royal  state,  and  exercising  harsh 
tyranny  against  those  whom  they  oppressed  with  their  usuries. 
The  usury  was  grinding  and  ruthless.  In  the  Chronicle  of 
Jocelin  de  Brakelond  we  see  how  rapidly  a  debt  of  twenty- 
seven  pounds,  owed  to  a  Jew,  grew  to  eight  hundred  and 
eighty.  Jews  at  Oxford  were  forbidden  by  edict  to  take  more 
than  forty-three  per  cent.  So  it  was  generally.  Political 
economy  will  say  that  this  was  justifiable,  in  the  circumstances 
perhaps  viseful,  and  the  penalty  due  to  the  Christian  supersti- 
tion which  made  the  lending  of  money  at  interest  an  unholy 


tup:  JEWISH  qui-:stion.  257 

and  therefore  a  perilous  trade.  Nevertheless,  it  was  hateful, 
at  least  sure  to  engender  hate.  The  Lombards  and  Cahorsins, 
who,  when  the  Jews  were  for  a  time  driven  from  the  field, 
took  up  the  business,  incurred  the  same  hatred,  though  in  their 
case  there  was  no  religious  or  social  feeling  to  aggravate  the 
unpopularity  of  the  trade.  A  Spanish  Chancellor  describes 
the  Jews  as  the  bloodsuckers  of  the  afflicted  people,  as  men 
Avho  exact  fifty  per  cent.,  eighty,  a  hundred,  and  through  whom 
the  land  is  desolate,  their  hard  hearts  being  callous  to  tears 
and  groans,  and  their  ears  deaf  to  petitions  for  delay. ^  Savon- 
aroln,  the  Christian  socialist  of  his  day,  revived  the  Monte  di 
Pieta  to  rescue  his  people  from  the  fangs  of  the  Jews. 

The  law  of  the  Jews  themselves,  be  it  observed,  proscribes 
usury  in  the  case  of  a  tribal  brother,  permitting  it  in  the  case 
of  a  stranger.  "Thou  shalt  not  lend  upon  usury  to  thy 
brother;  usury  of  money,  usury  of  victuals,  usury  of  anything 
that  is  lent  upon  usury:  unto  a  stranger  thou  mayest  lend 
upon  usury;  but  unto  thy  brother  thou  shalt  not  lend  upon 
usury :  that  the  Lord  thy  God  may  bless  thee  in  all  that  thou 
settest  thine  hand  to  in  the  land  whither  thou  goest  to  possess 
it"  (Deut.  xxiii.,  19,  20).  The  Jew,  then,  on  the  subject  of 
usury  is  not  less  superstitious  than  the  Christian.  In  truth 
the  Christian  superstition  may  be  said  to  have  been  derived 
from  the  Jewish  law.  Li  practising  usury  on  the  Christians 
among  whom  he  dwelt  the  Jew  showed  that  he  regarded  them 
not  as  brethren  but  as  strangers. 

The  Jews  in  the  Middle  Ages  after  all  were  not  so  mal- 
treated as  to  prevent  them  from  amassing  what  was  for  that 
time  enormous  wealth.  Of  this  they  appear  in  those  days,  as 
they  sometimes  do  in  these,  to  liave  made  ostentatious  and,  in 
tlie  eyes  of  natives  and  Christians,  especially  if  they  had  been 
victims  of  extortion,  offensive  use.  A  Cortes  in  Portugal,  in 
1481,  complained  of  Jewish  luxury  and  display,  of  Jews  who 
rode  splendidly  caparisoned  horses,  wore  silk  doublets,  carried 
jewel-hilted  swords,  and  entered  churches  where  they  mocked 

1  See  The  Ilhtoni  of  the  Jews  from  the  War  loith  Borne  to  the  Present 
Time,  p.  245.     By  liev.  H.  C.  Adams,  M.A, 

s 


258  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

the  worship.  Jewish  haughtiness  seems  sometimes  even  to 
have  indulged  in  insults  to  the  popular  religion.  At  Oxford 
it  mocks  the  miracles  of  St.  Prydeswide  before  her  votaries, 
assaults  a  religious  procession,  and  tramples  on  the  cross.  At 
Lynn  the  Jews  attack  a  church  to  drag  out  a  convert  from 
Judaism  to  Christianity,  for  whose  blood  they  thirsted,  and  the 
people  of  the  place  are  half  afraid  to  resist  them,  knowing 
that  they  are  protected  by  the  king.  Besides  their  usury,  the 
Jews  were  suspected  of  clipping  the  coin.  Their  function  as 
the  middlemen  of  royal  rapacity  must  have  been  most  odious, 
not  least  when  they  handled  for  the  king  Church  estates  which 
he  had  wrongfully  taken  into  his  hands.  In  expelling- them 
from  England,  Edward  I.,  the  best  of  kings,  no  doubt  thought 
that  he  was  doing  a  good  deed,  while  his  people  were  unques- 
tionably grateful.  The  worthy  Abbot  Samson,  of  St.  Edmond- 
bury,  in  the  same  way  earned  the  gratitude  of  the  people  of 
that  place  by  ridding  it  of  the  Jews.  The  clearest,  as  well  as 
the  most  terrible,  case  of  persecution  of  the  Jews  for  relio-ion 
was  in  Spain,  and  there,  it  must  be  remembered,  when  the  Jew 
was  burned,  the  Christian  suspected  of  heresy  was  burned  at 
his  side.  Even  in  Spain  it  is  not  easy  to  say  how  much  was 
hatred  of  religion,  how  much  was  hatred  of  race.  For  cen- 
turies the  Spanish  Christians  had  struggled  for  the  land  with 
Islam,  and  the  history  of  Spain  had  been  one  long  Crusade. 
The  Jew  was  identified  Avith  Islam.  A  Jewish  writer,  Lady 
Magnus,  in  her  history  of  her  race,  says : 

"  Both  in  the  East  and  in  the  West  the  rise  of  Mohammedanism  was, 
in  truth,  as  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  to  the  despised  and  dispersed  Jews. 
If  we  except  that  one  hitter  quarrel  between  the  eariiest  followers  of  the 
Prophet  and  the  Jews  of  Arabia,  —  and  that,  we  must  note,  was  no  organ- 
ized or  systematic  persecution,  but  rather  an  ebullition  of  anger  from  an 
ardent  enthusiast  at  his  first  unexpected  rebuff,  —  we  shall  find  that  Juda- 
ism had  much  reason  to  rejoice  at  the  rapid  spread  of  Mohammedanism. 
Monotheists.  like  the  Jews,  abhorring  like  them  all  forms  of  image  wor- 
ship, worshipping  in  simple  fashion  their  one  God  Allah,  observing  dietary 
laws  like  those  of  Moses,  the  Mohammedans  both  in  their  faith  and  in 
their  practice  naturally  found  more  grounds  for  agreement  with  Jewish 
doctrine  than  with  the  Christian  dogma  of  a  complex  Godhead,  or  with 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  259 

the  undeveloped  aspirations  of  the  heathen.  And  besides  some  iden- 
tity of  principle  and  of  race  between  the  Mohammedan  and  the  Jew 
there  soon  discovered  itself  a  certain  hardly  definable  kinship  of  habit 
and  custom,  —  a  sort  of  sympathy,  in  fact,  which  is  often  more  effectual 
than  even  more  important  causes  in  promoting  friendly  relations  either 
nationally  or  individually.  Then,  also,  there  was  the  similarity  of  lan- 
guage ;  for  Arabic,  like. Hebrew,  belongs  to  what  is  called  the  Semitic 
group.  .  .  .  Nearly  a  century  of  experience  of  the  political  and  social 
results  of  the  Moliammedan  contpests  must,  inevitably,  have  made  the 
year  710  stand  out  to  the  Jews  of  that  time  as  the  beginning  of  a  grand 
new  era  in  their  history.  Centuries  of  cruelty  had  made  the  wise  loyal 
counsel  of  Jeremiah  to  '  pray  for  the  peace  of  the  land  whither  ye  are 
led  captive  ;  its  peace  shall  be  your  peace  also,'  a  hard  task  for  the  most 
loyal  of  consciences  ;  and  in  that  early  year  of  the  eighth  century,  when 
Spain  was  added  to  the  list  of  the  Mohammedan  victories,  and  the  trium- 
phant flag  of  the  Crescent  was  hoisted  on  tower  and  citadel,  the  liberty 
of  conscience  which  it  practically  proclaimed  must  have  been  in  the 
widest  sense  a  cause  for  national  rejoicing  to  the  Jews."  ^ 

The  kindness  of  the  Mahometan  to  the  Jew  may  here  he 
overrated,  but  the  sympathy  between  Judaism  and  Islam  can- 
not be  questioned,  and  it  meant  common  antipathy  to  Christen- 
dom, which  Christendom  could  not  fail  to  reciprocate,  especially 
in  its  crusading  mood.  We  sit  at  ease  and  sneer  at  the  fanat- 
icism of  the  Crusaders.  But  some  strong  motive  was  needed 
to  make  men  leave  their  homes  and  their  wives  and  go  to  die 
as  the  vanguard  of  Christendom  on  Syrian  battlefields.  Let 
U.S  not  forget  that  the  question  whether  Christianity  and 
Christian  civilisation  or  Islam,  with  its  despotism  and  its 
harem,  should  reign  in  Europe  came  to  be  decided,  not  without 
long  and  perilous  debate,  so  near  the  heart  of  Christendom  as 
the  plain  of  Tours.  The  Jews  of  Southern  France,  like  those 
of  Spain,  were  suspected  of  inviting  the  invaders.  If  they  did 
they  were  not  without  excuse.  But  their  excuse  could  hardly 
be  expected  to  pass  muster  with  Charles  Martel. 

From  religious  intolerance  in  the  Dark  Ages,  or  long  after 
the  end  of  the  Dark  Ages,  nobody  was  free.  The  Jew  was 
not.  He  had  striven  as  long  as  he  had  a  chance,  by  all  means 
in  his  power,  unscrupulously  using  the  Roman  or  the  Persian 

1  About  the  Jeios  since  Bible  Times,  pp.  195-197.     By  Lady  Magnus. 


260  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

as  his  instruments,  to  crush  Christianity.  His  own  law  pun- 
ished blasphemy  with  death  and  bade  the  worshipper  of 
Jehovah  slaughter  everything  that  breathed  in  a  captured  city 
of  the  heathen.  It  was  hence,  in  fact,  that  the  Inquisitor 
partly  drew  his  inspiration.  Medieval  darkness  had  passed 
away  when  Judaism  sought  the  life  of  Spinoza  and  scourged 
Uriel  Acosta  in  the  synagogue. 

Although  the  lot  of  a  Jew  in  the  Middle  Ages  Avas  hard  in 
itself,  it  was  perhaps  not  so  hard  compared  with  that  of  other 
classes,  notably  with  that  of  the  serf,  as  the  perpetual  addition 
of  piteous  epithets  to  his  name  by  common  writers  might  lead 
us  to  suppose.  "Ivanhoe"  is  not  history;  Freeman's  works 
are.     Freeman  says : 

"  In  the  wake  of  the  conqueror  the  Jews  of  Rouen  found  their  way 
to  London,  and  before  long  we  find  settlements  of  the  Hebrew  race  in 
the  chief  cities  and  boroughs  of  England  :  at  York,  Winchester,  Lincoln, 
Bristol,  Oxford,  and  even  at  the  gate  of  the  Abbot  of  St.  Edmonds  and 
St.  Albans.  They  came  as  the  king's  special  men,  or  more  truly  as  his 
special  chattels,  strangers  alike  to  the  Church  and  the  commonwealth, 
but  strong  in  the  protection  of  a  master  who  commonly  found  it  his 
interest  to  protect  them  against  all  others.  Hated,  feared,  and  loathed, 
but  far  too  deeply  feared  to  be  scorned  or  oppressed,  they  stalked  defi- 
antly among  the  people  of  the  land,  on  whose  wants  they  throve,  safe 
from  harm  or  insult,  save  now  and  then,  when  popular  wrath  burst  all 
bounds,  when  their  proud  mansions  and  fortified  quarters  could  shelter 
them  no  longer  from  raging  crowds  who  were  eager  to  wash  out  their 
debts  in  the  blood  of  their  creditors.  The  romantic  picture  of  the 
despised,  trembling  Jew,  cringing  before  every  Christian  whom  he 
meets,  is,  in  any  age  of  English  history,  simply  a  romantic  picture."  i 

The  Jews  found  it  worth  their  while  to  buy  their  way  back 
into  lands  from  which  they  had  been  banished,  and  their 
existence  in  which  is  pictured  by  historians  as  a  hell.  If  they 
were  heavily  taxed  and  sometimes  pillaged,  they  were  exempted 
from  the  most  grievous  of  all  taxes,  service  in  war.  Their 
badge,  though  a  stigma,  was  also  a  protection,  since  it  marked 
them  as  serfs  of  the  king.     Even  the  Ghetto,  where  there  was 

1  The  Beign  of  William  liufus  and  the  Accession  of  Henry  the  First, 
Vol.  I.,  p.  160.     By  Edward  A.  Freeman. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  2G1 

one,  would  be  comparatively  a  small  grievance  when  nation- 
alities, crafts,  and  family  clans  had  their  special  quarters  in 
cities.  Any  immigrant  would  have  been  less  at  home  in  the 
closely  organised  communities  of  feudalism  and  Catholicism 
than  in  the  loose  society  of  the  Roman  Empire.  But  the  Jew 
was  there  by  his  own  choice.  The  tenure  of  land  in  a  feudal 
realm,  being  military,  land  could  hardly  be  held  by  a  Jew. 
But  Jews  were  not  forbidden  by  law  to  hold  land  in  England 
till  late  in  the  reign  of  Henry  III.,  when  it  was  found  that  they 
were  getting  estates  into  their  hands  by  mortgage,  which  would 
have  been  ruinous  to  the  feudal  system.  A  community  has  a 
right  to  defend  its  territory  and  its  national  integrity  against 
an  invader  whether  his  weapon  be  the  sword  or  foreclosure. 
In  the  territories  of  the  Italian  Republics  the  Jews  might, 
so  far  as  we  see,  have  bought  land  and  taken  to  farming  had 
they  pleased.  But  before  this  they  had  thoroughly  taken  to 
trade.  Under  the  falling  Empire  they  were  the  great  slave- 
traders,  buying  captives  from  barbarian  invaders  and  probably 
acting  as  general  brokers  of  spoils  at  the  same  time.  They 
entered  England  in  the  train  of  the  Norman  conqueror.  There 
was,  no  doubt,  a  perpetual  struggle  between  their  craft  and  the 
brute  force  of  the  feudal  populations.  But  what  moral  pre- 
rogative has  craft  over  force?  Mr.  Arnold  White  tells  the 
Russians  that,  if  they  would  let  Jewish  intelligence  have  free 
course,  Jews  would  soon  fill  all  high  employments  and  places 
of  power  to  the  exclusion  of  the  natives,  who  now  hold  them. 
Russians  are  bidden  to  acquiesce  and  rather  to  rejoice  in  this 
by  philosophers,  who  would  perhaps  not  relish  the  cup  if  it 
were  commended  to  their  own  lips.  The  law  of  evolution,  it 
is  said,  prescribes  the  survival  of  the  fittest.  To  which  the 
Russian  boor  may  reply,  that  if  his  force  beats  the  fine  intelli- 
gence of  the  Jew  the  fittest  will  survive  and  the  law  of  evolu- 
tion will  be  fulfilled.  It  was  force  rather  than  fine  intelligence 
which  decided  on  the  field  of  Zama  that  the  Latin,  not  the 
Semite,  should  rule  the  ancient  and  mould  the  modern  world. 
Religious  antipathy,  no  doubt,  lias  always  added  and  con- 
tinues to  add  bitterness  to  the  S()ci;il  (inarrcl.      Among  ignorant 


262  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

peasants  it  still  takes  grotesque,  sometimes  hideous,  shapes, 
such  as  the  cruel  fancy  that  the  Jews  sacrifice  Christian  chil- 
dren and  spread  pestilence.  The  Jew  has  always  been  felt  to 
be  a  power  of  evil,  and  the  peasant  imagination  lends  to  the 
power  of  evil  horns  and  hoofs.  But  even  the  peasant  imagina- 
tion does  not  lend  horns  and  hoofs  to  any  power  which  is  felt 
to  be  harmless,  much  less  to  one  which  has  always  been 
beneficent,  as  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  the  Jews  have  been. 
The  people  are  not  everywhere  fools  or  fiends.  Let  it  be 
remembered,  too,  that  the  Jewish  religion  is  not  merely  a 
religion  of  peculiar  opinion.  It  is  a  religion  of  social  exclu- 
siveness,  of  arrogated  superiority  to  Gentiles,  and  treatment  of 
them  as  unclean,  of  the  Pentateuch  with  its  Chosen  People, 
and  of  the  feast  of  Purim.  Milman  thinks  it  possible  that  in 
the  offensive  celebration  of  the  feast  of  Purim  some  of  the 
calumnies  about  the  Jews  may  have  had  their  source. 

People  of  a  higher  class,  whom  Jewish  usury  does  not  touch, 
object  to  Judaism  on  higher  grounds.  They  object  to  it 
because  it  is  at  variance  with  the  unity  of  the  nation  and 
threatens  to  eat  out  the  core  of  nationality.  Admitting  the 
keenness  of  Jewish  intelligence,  they  say  that  intelligence  is 
not  always  beneficent,  nor  is  submission  to  it  always  a  matter  of 
duty,  especially  when  its  ascendancy  is  gained  by  such  means 
as  the  dexterous  appropriation  of  the  circulating  medium,  and 
when  it  is,  as  they  believe,  the  result  not  of  individual  effort 
in  a  fair  field,  but  of  the  collective  effort  of  a  united,  though 
scattered  race,  aided  by  a  press  in  Jewish  hands.  They  demur 
to  having  the  high  places  of  their  community  monopolised,  as 
Mr.  Arnold  White  says  they  might  be  in  Eussia,  by  unsympa- 
thetic aliens  turning  the  rest  of  the  nation  into  hewers  of  wood 
and  drawers  of  water.  This  feeling,  if  it  is  selfish,  is  natural, 
and  should  be  charitably  viewed  by  those  who  are  free  from 
the  danger.  Some  of  the  opposition  to  JcAvish  ascendancy 
arises  from  dread  of  materialism,  the  triumph  of  which  over 
the  spiritual  character  and  aspirations  of  Christian  communi- 
ties would,  it  is  apprehended,  follow  the  victory  of  the  Jew, 
an  impersonation  of  the  power  of  wealth.     Among  the  anti- 


THE  JEWISH   QUESTION.  263 

Semites  are  Cliristian  Socialists  seeking  the  liberation  of  the 
labouring  class  from  the  grasp  of  usury  and  the  money  power. 
Herr  Stoecker  belongs,  it  seems,  tc  this  sect,  and  far  from 
being  an  enemy  of  the  Jewish  people,  is  a  devout  believer  in 
the  Old  Testament.  To  be  opposed  on  social  or  patriotic 
ground  to  Judaism  as  a  system  is  not  to  be  a  hater  of  the 
Jews,  any  more  than  to  be  opposed  to  Islam  or  Buddhism  as  a 
system  is  to  be  a  hater  of  the  Mahometan  or  the  Buddhist. 

The  impression  prevails  that  Judaism  during  the  Middle 
Ages  was  a  civilising  power,  in  fact  the  great  civilising  power, 
while  its  beneficent  action  was  repressed  by  a  barbarous  Chris- 
tendom. The  leading  shoot  of  civilisation,  both  material  and 
intellectual,  was  republican  Italy,  where  the  Jews,  though 
they  were  not  persecuted,  never  played  a  leading  part.  You 
may  read  through  Sismondi's  History  almost  without  being 
made  aware  of  their  existence.  Intellectually  superior  in  a 
certain  sense  no  doubt  they  were;  their  wealth  exempted  them 
from  manual  labour,  and  gave  them  an  advantage,  as  it  does 
now,  in  the  race  of  intelligence.  They  were  also  practically 
exempted  from  military  service.  They  preserved  Hebrew  and 
Oriental  learning,  and  to  them  Europe  owed  the  transmission 
of  the  works  of  Aristotle  through  Arabic  translations.  But  in 
their  medieval  roll  of  celebrated  names  the  great  majority  are 
those  of  Talmudists  or  Cabbalists.  The  most  illustrious  is 
that  of  Maimonides,  whose  influence  on  the  progress  of 
humanity  surely  was  not  very  great,  albeit  he  was  let  and 
hindered  only  by  the  narrow  and  jealous  orthodoxy  of  his  own 
people.  Jews  were  in  request  as  physicians,  though  tliey  seem 
to  have  drawn  their  knowledge  from  the  Arabians.  They  had 
much  to  do  with  the  foundation  of  the  medical  school  of 
Montpellier;  the  origin  of  that  at  Salerno  was  Benedictine. 
But  if  they  founded  a  medical  science,  what  became  of  the 
medical  science  which  they  founded?  At  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages  there  was  none.  A  Jewish  physician,  no  doubt 
the  most  eminent  of  his  class,  is  called  in  by  Innocent  VI  If. 
His  treatment  is  transfusion  of  blood.  He  kills  three  boys  in 
the  process  and  then  runs  away.     Of  the  money  trade  the 


204  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Jews  were  generally  the  masters,  though  in  Italy  that,  too,  was 
in  the  hands  of  native  houses,  such  as  tlie  Medici,  Bardi,  and 
Peruzzi,  while  at  a  later  period  the  Fuggers  of  Augsburg  were 
the  Rothschilds  of  Germany.     But-  the  Jews  never  were  the 
masters  of  the  grand  commerce  or  of  that  maritime  enterprise 
in  which  the  Middle  Ages  gloriously  closed.     Eosseeuw  Saint- 
Hilaire  has  observed  in  his  history  of  Spain  that  their  addic- 
tion was  to  petty  trade.     Showing   abundant  sympathy  for 
Jewish  wrongs,  he  finds   himself   compelled  to  contrast  the 
"  narrowness  and  rapacity  "  of  their  commerce  with  the  bold- 
ness and  grandeur  of  Arab  enterprise.^     The  slave  trade,  which 
in  the  early  Middle  Ages  was  in  Jewish  hands,  was  not  then 
the  reproach  that  it  is  now,  yet   it  never  was  a  noble   or  a 
beneficent  trade.     Spain  is  supposed  to  have  owed  her  fall  to 
the  expulsion  of  the  Jews,  but  the  acme  of  her  greatness  came 
after  their  expulsion;  and  her  fall  was  due  to  despotism,  civil 
and  religious,  to  her  false  commercial  system,  to  the  diversion 
of  her  energy  from  industry  to  gold-seeking  and  conquest,  and 
not  least  to  the  overgrown  and  heterogeneous  empire  which 
was  the  supposed  foundation  of  her  grandeur.     England,  in 
the  period  between  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews  under  Edward  I. 
and  their  readmission  under  Cromwell,  became  a  commercial 
nation'  and  a  famous   naval  power;    and  the  greatness  thus 
achieved  was  English,  not  Gibeonite,  as  it  would  have  been 
under  Jewish  ascendancy;  it  was  part  of  the  fulness  of  national 
life,  and  was  prolific  not  only  of  VVhittingtons  and  Drakes,  but 
of  Shakespeares  and  Bacons.     As  financiers  it  is  likely  that 
the  Jews  were  useful  in  advancing  money  for  great  works; 
they  also  furnished  money  for  enterprises  such  as  Strongbow's 
expedition  to  Ireland.     But  the  assertion,  often  repeated,  that 
the}'  provided  the  means  for  building  the  churches,  abbeys, 
and  colleges  of  England  must  be  qualified  in  face  of  the  fact 
that  the   greater   part  of  the  edifices  is  of  dates  subsequent 
to  the  expulsion  of  the  Jews.     Salisbury  Cathedral  was  built 
before  the  expulsion.     But  we  happen  to  know  that  the  forty 
thousand  marks  which  it  cost  were  supplied  by  contributions 

1  Histoire  (VEspagne,  Vol.  III.,  p.  147. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  265 

from  the  Prebendaries,  collections  from  different  dioceses,  and 
grants  from  Alicia  de  Bruere  and  other  benefactors.^ 

No  financial  or  material  advantage  at  all  events  conkl  have 
made  np  to  a  nation  for  the  ascendancy  of  a  tribe  of  alien 
usurers. 

Judaism  is  now  the  great  financial  power  of  Europe,  that  is, 
it  is  the  greatest  power  of  all.  It  is  no  longer  necessary,  out 
of  pit}^  for  it,  to  falsify  history,  and  traduce  Christendom. 

Of  the  two  works  on  which,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  Jewish 
intellect  was  chiefly  employed,  the  Cabbala  is  on  all  hands 
allowed  to  be  mystical  nonsense.  Of  the  Talmud,  Dr.  Farrar, 
assuredly  no  Jew-baiter,  in  his  Preface  to  a  volume  of  selec- 
tions from  it,  says: 

"  Wisdom  there  is  in  tlie  Talmud,  and  eloquence  and  high  morality ; 
of  this  the  reader  may  learn  something  even  in  the  small  compass  of  the 
following  pages.  How  could  it  be  otherwise  when  we  bear  in  mind  that 
the  Talmud  fills  twelve  large  folio  volumes,  and  represents  the  main  lit- 
erature of  a  nation  during  several  hundred  years  ?  But  yet  I  venture  to 
say  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  find  less  wisdom,  less  eloquence,  and 
less  high  morality,  imbedded  in  a  vaster  bulk  of  what  is  utterly  valueless 
to  mankind,  —  to  say  nothing  of  those  parts  of  it  which  are  indelicate 
and  even  obscene,  —  in  any  other  national  literature  of  the  same  extent. 
And  even  of  the  valuable  residuum  of  true  and  holy  thoughts,  I  doubt 
whether  there  is  even  one  which  had  not  long  been  anticipated,  and 
which  is  not  found  more  nobly  set  forth  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament. ' '  '^ 

This  judgment  is  fully  borne  out  by  the  selections  which 
follow,  and  which  are  made  by  Mr.  Hershon,  a  known  Hebrew 
scholar,  on  an  impartial  principle.  It  is  supported  by  other 
independent  critics,  such  as  Thirlwall,  who  spoke  of  the 
Talmud  as  an  ocean  of  nonsense.  The  writer  will  not  presume 
to  speak,  though  he  looks  back  upon  the  perusal  of  a  Latin 
translation  of  the  Mishna  as  one  of  the  least  pleasant  labours 
of  a  student's  life.     Dr.  Deutsch's  counterfeit  presentment  of 

1  See  Murray's  Handbook  to  the  Cathedrals  of  England.  Southern 
Division,  Part  I.,  p.  94. 

2  A  Talmudic  MisreUamj.  Compiled  and  translated  by  Paul  Isaac 
Hershon,  with  introductory  preface  by  Rev.  F.  W.  Farrar,  D.I).,  F.Il.S. 


2G0  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

the  Talmud,  to  which  Dr.  Farrar  refers,  is  a  standing  caution. 
In  every  page  of  Mr.  Hershon's  "Talmudic  Miscellany"  we 
have  such  things  as  this : 

"  There  were  two  things  which  God  first  thought  of  creating  on  the  eve 
of  the  Sabbath,  which,  however,  were  not  created  till  after  the  Sabbath 
had  closed.  The  first  was  fire,  which  Adam  by  divine  suggestion  drew 
forth  by  striking  together  two  stones  ;  and  the  second  was  the  mule,  pro- 
duced by  the  crossing  of  two  different  animals."  —  P''sachim,  fol.  54, 
col.  1. 

"The  Rabbis  have  taught  that  there  are  three  reasons  why  a  person 
should  not  enter  a  ruin  :  1.  Because  he  may  be  suspected  of  evil  intent ; 
2.  Because  the  walls  might  tumble  upon  him  ;  3.  And  because  of  evil 
spirits  that  frequent  such  places."  — Berachoth,  fol.  3,  col.  1. 

"The  stone  which  Og,  King  of  Bashan,  meant  to  throw  upon  Israel  is 
the  subject  of  a  tradition  delivered  on  Sinai.  'The  camp  of  Israel  I  see,' 
he  said, '  extends  three  miles  ;  I  shall  therefore  go  and  root  up  a  mountain 
three  miles  in  extent  and  throw  it  upon  them.'  So  off  he  went,  and  find- 
ing such  a  mountain,  raised  it  on  his  head,  but  the  Holy  One  —  blessed  be 
He  !  —  sent  an  army  of  ants  against  him,  which  so  bored  the  mountain 
over  his  head  that  it  slipped  down  upon  his  shoulders,  from  which  he 
could  not  lift  it,  because  his  teeth,  protruding,  had  riveted  it  upon  him." 
—  Berachnth,  fol.  54,  col.  2. 

"Three  things  are  said  respecting  the  finger-nails  :  He  who  trims  his 
nails  and  buries  the  parings  is  a  pious  man  ;  he  who  burns  these  is  a 
righteous  man  ;  but  he  who  throws  them  away  is  a  wicked  man,  for  mis- 
chance might  follow,  should  a  female  step  over  them." — ■  Moed  Katan, 
fol.  18,  col.  1.1 

Abraham's  height,  according  to  the  Talmudists,  was  that  of 
seventy-four  men  put  together.  His  food,  his  dress,  and  his 
strength  were  those  of  seventy-four  men.  He  built  for  the 
abode  of  his  seventeen  children  by  Keturah,  an  iron  city,  the 
walls  whereof  were  so  lofty  that  the  sun  never  penetrated 
them.  He  gave  them  a  bowl  full  of  precious  stones,  the 
brilliancy  of  which  supplied  them  with  light  in  the  absence  of 
the  sun.  He  had  a  precious  stone  suspended  from  his  neck, 
upon  which  every  sick  person  who  gazed  was  healed  of  his  dis- 
ease, and  when  he  died  God  hung  up  the  stone  on  the  sphere 
of  the  sun.     Before  his  time  there  was  no  such  thing  as  a 

1  Quoted  in  Hershon's  Miscellany. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  267 

beard;  1)ut  as  many  mistook  Abraham  and  Isaac  for  each  other, 
Abraham  prayed  to  God  for  a  beard  to  distinguish  liini,  and  it 
was  granted  him.  Every  one  has  a  thousand  malignant  spirits 
at  his  left  side,  and  ten  thousand  at  his  right.  The  crowding 
at  the  schools  is  caused  by  their  pushing  in.  If  one  would 
discover  traces  of  their  presence,  he  has  only  to  sift  some  ashes 
on  the  floor  at  his  bedside,  and  next  morning  he  will  see  the 
footmarks  as  of  fowls.  If  he  would  see  the  demons  them- 
selves, he  must  burn  to  ashes  the  afterbirth  of  a  first-born 
black  kitten,  the  offspring  of  a  first-born  black  cat,  put  some 
of  the  ashes  into  his  eyes,  and  he  will  not  fail  to  see  the 
demons.  The  medical  and  physical  apophthegms  of  the 
Talmud  do  not  give  much  evidence  of  science:  "dropsy  is  a 
sign  of  sin,  jaundice  of  hatred  without  a  cause,  and  quinsy  of 
slander";  "six  things  possess  medicinal  virtue:  cabbage, 
lung-wort,  beet-root,  water,  certain  parts  of  the  offal  of  animals, 
and,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  little  fishes."  Mr.  Hershon's  col- 
lection abounds  with  nonsense  on  this  subject  as  absurd  as 
anything  in  medieval  quackery.  Other  features  of  the  work 
are  an  Oriental  indelicacy,  and  a  pride  of  Rabbinical  learning 
which  treats  illiteracy  as  almost  criminal,  looking  down  upon 
the  illiterate  as  an  American  would  look  down  upon  the  negro. 
The  most  superstitious  of  Christian  writings  in  the  Dark  Ages 
could  not  be  more  tainted  with  demonology  and  witchcraft, 
nor  in  any  monkish  chronicle  do  we  find  fables  so  gross.  Few 
would  set  the  Talmud,  as  presented  by  Mr.  Hershon,  or  the 
Cabbala,  above  the  works  of  such  writers  as  Anselm,  Aquinas, 
the  author  of  "Imitatio  Christi,"  the  authors  of  hymns  and 
liturgical  compositions  of  the  Christian  Middle  Ages;  or,  in  the 
department  of  science,  above  the  works  of  Roger  Bacon. 

We  have  been  speaking,  be  it  observed,  of  the  Talmud  as 
the  work  and  monument  of  Jewish  intelligence  and  morality 
in  the  Dark  Ages;  we  have  not  been  speaking  of  tlie  intelli- 
gence or  morality  of  the  Jews  of  the  present  day.  The  charge 
is  constantly  brought  against  Christendom  of  having  by  its 
barbarous  bigotry  repressed  tlie  beneficent  action  of  Jewish 
intellect,  which  would  otherwise  have  enlightened  and  civilised 


2G8  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

the  world.  The  answer  is  apparently  found  in  the  Cabbala 
and  the  Talmud.  By  the  account  of  the  Jewish  historian 
Graetz,  it  would  seem  that  Rabbinical  orthodoxy  was  not  less 
opposed  than  Papal  orthodoxy  to  science,  philosophy,  and  cul- 
ture. We  are  led  to  believe  that,  at  last,  Talmudic  bigotry 
and  obscurantism  had  prevailed,  when  Judaism  was  rescued 
by  Moses  Mendelssohn,  who  himself  owed  his  emancipation  to 
Lessing.  Nathan  the  Wise  is  a  philosopher  and  philanthropist 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  not  a  Talmudic  Jew. 

Still  more  notable,  however,  than  the  absurdities  are  the 
passages  indicative  of  a  tribal  morality  which  prescribes  one 
mode  of  dealing  with  those  who  are,  and  another  mode  of 
dealing  with  those  who  are  not,  of  the  tribe.   • 

"If  the  ox  of  an  Israelite  bruise  the  ox  of  a  Gentile,  the  Israelite  is 
exempt  from  paying  damages  ;  but  should  the  ox  of  a  Gentile  bruise  the 
ox  of  an  Israelite,  the  Gentile  is  bound  to  recompense  him  in  full."  — 
Bava  Kama,  fol.  38,  col.  1. 

"When  an  Israelite  and  a  Gentile  have  a  lawsuit  before  thee,  if  thou 
canst,  acquit  the  former  according  to  the  laws  of  Israel,  and  tell  the  latter 
such  is  OM?-  law ;  if  thou  canst  get  him  off  in  accordance  with  Gentile 
law,  do  so,  and  say  to  the  plaintiff  such  is  your  law  ;  but  if  he  cannot  be 
acquitted  according  to  either  law,  then  bring  forward  adroit  pretexts  and 
secure  his  acquittal.  These  are  the  words  of  the  Rabbi  Ishmael.  Rabbi 
Akiva  says,  'No  false  pretext  should  be  brought  forward,  because,  if 
found  out,  the  name  of  God  would  be  blasphemed  ;  but  if  there  be  no 
fear  of  that,  then  it  may  be  adduced.'  "  —  Ih.,  fol.  113,  col.  1. 

"  If  one  finds  lost  property  in  a  locality  where  a  majority  are  Israelites, 
he  is  bound  to  proclaim  it ;  but  he  is  not  bound  to  do  so  if  the  majority 
be  Gentiles."  —  Bava  Metzia,  fol.  24,  col.  1. 

"  Rabbi  Shemuel  says  advantage  may  be  taken  of  the  mistakes  of  a 
Gentile.  He  once  bought  a  gold  plate  as  a  copper  of  a  Gentile  for  four 
zouzim,  and  then  cheated  him  out  of  one  zouz  into  the  bargain.  Rav 
Cahana  purchased  a  hundred  and  twenty  vessels  of  wine  from  a  Gentile 
for  a  hundred  zouzim,  and  swindled  him  in  the  payment  out  of  one  of  the 
hundred,  and  that  while  the  Gentile  assured  him  that  he  confidently 
trusted  to  his  lionesty.  Rava  once  went  parts  with  a  Gentile  and  bought 
a  tree  which  was  cut  up  into  logs.  This  done,  he  bade  his  servant  go  and 
pick  him  out  the  largest  logs,  but  to  be  sure  to  take  no  more  than  the 
proper  number,  because  the  Gentile  knew  how  many  there  were.  As 
Rav  Aghi  was  walking  abroad  one  day  he  saw  some  grapes  growing  in  a 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  209 

roadside  vineyard,  and  sent  liis  servant  to  see  whom  tliey  belonged  to. 
'  If  they  belong  to  a  Gentile,'  he  said,'  bring  some  here  to  me  ;  but  if  they 
belong  to  an  Israelite,  do  not  meddle  with  them.'  The  owner,  who  hap- 
pened to  be  in  the  vineyard,  overheard  tlie  Kabbi's  order  and  called  out, 
'  What !  is  it  lawful  to  rob  a  Gentile  ?  '  'Oh,  no,'  said  the  Rabbi  eva- 
sively ;  '  a  Gentile  might  sell,  but  an  Israelite  would  not.'  "  — Bava  Kama, 
fol.  118,  col.  2.1 

The  principle  which  animates  these  passages  appears  in  a 
mikler  form  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  which  license  perpetual 
bondage  as  well  as  the  taking  of  interest  in  the  case  of  a  Gen- 
tile, not  in  that  of  a  Hebrew.  Such  a  principle,  however 
mildly  expressed,  Avas  too  likely  to  be  extended  in  practice. 
Dr.  Edersheim,  the  author  of  "  The  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus 
the  Messiah,"  is  favourable  enough  on  religious  grounds  to  the 
Jews;  but  in  describing  their  relations  to  the  Gentiles,  as 
regulated  by  the  Talmud,  he  says : 

"To  begin  with,  every  Gentile  child,  so  soon  as  born,  was  to  be 
regarded  as  unclean.  Those  who  actually  worshipped  mountains,  hills, 
bushes,  etc.,  —  in  short,  gross  idolaters  —  should  be  cut  down  with  the 
sword.  But  as  it  was  impossible  to  exterminate  heathenism,  liabbinical 
legislation  kept  certain  definite  objects  in  view,  which  may  be  thus  sum- 
marised :  To  prevent  Jews  from  being  inadvertently  led  into  idolatry  ; 
to  avoid  all  participation  in  idolatry  ;  not  to  do  anything  which  might 
aid  the  heathen  in  their  w-orship ;  and,  beyond  all  this,  not  to  give 
pleasure,  or  even  help,  to  heathens.  The  latter  involved  a  most  dan- 
gerous principle,  capable  of  almost  indefinite  application  \>y  fanaticism. 
Even  the  Mishna  goes  so  far  as  to  forbid  aid  to  a  mother  in  the  hour  of 
her  need,  or  nourishment  to  her  babe,  in  order  not  to  bring  up  a  child 
for  idolatry  !  But  this  is  not  all.  Heathens  were,  indeed,  not  to  be 
precipitated  into  danger,  but  yet  not  to  be  delivered  from  it.  Indeed, 
an  isolated  teacher  ventures  even  upon  this  statement :  '  The  best  among 
the  Gentiles,  kill ;  the  best  among  seriJents,  crush  its  head.'  Even  more 
terrible  was  the  fanaticism  which  directed  that  heretics,  traitors,  and 
those  who  had  left  the  Jewish  faith  should  be  thrown  into  actual  danger, 
and,  if  they  were  in  such,  all  means  for  their  escape  removed.  No  inter- 
course of  any  kind  was  to  be  had  with  such,  —  not  even  to  invoke  their 
medical  aid  in  case  of  danger  to  life,  since  it  was  deemed  that  he  who 
had  to  do  with  heretics  was  in  imminent  peril  of  becoming  one  liimself, 

1  Hershon's  Miscellany. 


270  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

and  that,  if  a  heretic  returned  to  the  true  faith,  he  should  die  at  once,  — 
partly,  probably,  to  expiate  his  guilt,  and  partly  from  fear  of  re- 
lapse." 1 

Not  less  significant  are  the  Talmudic  expressions  of  tribal 
pride  and  contempt  of  common  humanity.  "  All  Israelites  are 
princes."  "Alllsraelites  are  holy."  "  Happy  are  ye,  0  Israel, 
for  every  one  of  you,  from  the  least  even  to  the  greatest,  is  a 
great  philosopher."  "As  it  is  impossible  for  the  world  to  be 
without  air,  so  also  is  it  impossible  for  the  world  to  be  with- 
out Israel."  "One  empire  cometh  and  another  passeth  away, 
but  Israel  abideth  for  ever."  "The  world  was  created  only 
for  Israel:  none  are  called  the  children  of  God  but  Israel; 
none  are  beloved  before  God  but  Israel."  "Ten  measures  of 
wisdom  came  down  to  the  world.  The  land  of  Israel  received 
nine,  the  rest  of  the  world  but  one," 

Critics  of  Judaism  are  accused  of  bigotry  of  race,  as  well  as 
of  bigotry  of  religion.  The  accusation  comes  strangely  from 
those  who  style  themselves  the  Chosen  People,  make  race  a 
religion,  and  treat  all  races  except  their  own  as  Gentiles  and 
unclean. 

The  notion  that  the  Jews  are  to  be  maltreated  because  their 
ancestors  by  the  hand  of  Pilate  crucified  Christ,  has  long  been 
discarded  and  derided  by  all  enlightened  Christians.  But 
equally  baseless  is  the  notion  that  Christianity  owes  homage 
to  Judaism,  has  any  particular  interest  in  it,  or  any  particular 
duty  concerning  it.  To  Talmudic  Judaism,  at  all  events,  it 
owes  nothing.  Whether  in  its  origin  it  owed  anything  to  the 
liberal  school  of  Hillel,  we  cannot  tell.  The  Talmud  is  a  vast 
repertory  of  legalism,  formalism,  ceremonialism,  and  casuistry. 
Nothing  can  be  more  opposed  to  the  spontaneity  of  conscience, 
trust  in  principle,  and  preference  of  the  spirit  to  the  letter 
characteristic  of  the  Gospel,  in  which  even  the  Ten  Command- 
ments are  superseded  by  the  Two.  The  pervading  intention 
of  the  Talmud  is,  by  multiplying  ceremonial  barriers,  to  keep 
the  Chosen  People  separate  from  the  Gentiles  among  whom 

Vol.  I.,  pp.  90,  91. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  271 

they  lived;  in  other  words,  to  perpetuate  the  tribe.  Chris- 
tianity is  a  religion  of  humanity.  Baptism  is  a  rite  of  initia- 
tion into  a  universal  brotherhood.  Circumcision,  the  Jewish 
circumcision  at  all  events,  is  the  mark  of  enrolment  in  an 
exclusive  tribe.  The  fundamental  antagonism  of  Judaism  to 
Christianity  was  shown,  not  only  in  the  murder  of  Christ,  but 
in  the  bitter  persecution  of  his  followers.  Christianity  had 
its  antecedents,  but  it  begins  with  Christ:  it  has  no  relation  to 
Talmudic  Judaism  but  those  of  reaction  and  secession. 

We  have  given  up  the  fancy  that  the  Jew  is  accursed.  We 
must  cease  to  believe  that  he  is  sacred.  Israel  was  the  fa- 
vourite people  of  Jehovah,  as  every  tribe  was  the  favourite  of 
its  own  god.  The  belief  that  the  Father  of  all  and  tlie  God 
of  iustice  had  a  favourite  race,  made  with  it  a  covenant  sealed 
with  the  barbarous  rite  of  circumcision,  pledged  himself  to 
promote  its  interest  against  those  of  other  races,  destroyed  all 
the  innocent  first-born  of  Egypt  to  force  Pharaoh  to  let  it  go, 
licensed  its  aggrandisement  by  conquest,  stopped  the  sun  in 
heaven  to  give  it  time  to  slaughter  people  Avhose  lands  it  had 
invaded  without  a  cause,  and  gratified  its  malignity  by  enjoin- 
ing it  when  it  took  one  of  the  cities  which  were  given  it  for  its 
inheritance  to  save  alive  nothing  that  breathed,  ought  now  to 
be  laid  aside,  with  all  its  corollaries  and  consequences,  includ- 
ing the  passionate,  and,  to  the  Hebrew,  somewhat  offensive  ef- 
fort to  convert  this  particular  race  to  Christianity.  We  have 
been  told  from  the  pulpit  that  at  the  last  day  the  world  will 
be  judged  by  a  Jew,  and  a  religious  lady  once  suggested  to  a 
Jew  who  had  been  converted  to  Christianity  that  he  should  go 
on  circumcising  his  sons.  We  shall  have  little  right  to  com- 
plain of  the  tribal  arrogance  of  the  Jew  so  long  as  the  Old 
Testament  continues  to  be  indiscriminately  read  in  our  churches 
and  wo  persist,  by  talking  of  a  chosen  people,  in.  ascribing 
favouritism  to  the  Almighty.  The  belief  that  "  God  has  made 
of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  to  dwell  on  the  face  of  tlie 
earth,"  is  the  foundation  of  a  religion  of  humanity,  and 
Judaism  is  its  practical  denial. 

Jesus  called  himself  the  Son  of  Man.     He  was  a  Galilean, 


272  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

that  is,  in  high  Jewish  estimation,  an  inferior  Jew,  setting 
aside  the  "  endless  "  or  "  profitless  "  genealogies  which  the 
writer  of  the  First  Epistle  to  Timothy  classes  with  fables  and 
bids  us  not  to  heed.  Born  into  Judaism,  he  accepted  it  and 
"  fulfilled  "  all  its  "  righteousness,"  while  he  must  have  known, 
as  his  antagonists  did,  that  his  principles  would  subvert  it. 
Because  he  did  this,  we  have  taken  upon  our  understandings 
and  hearts  a  belief  in  the  divine  authority  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, that  is,  of  the  whole  mass  of  Hebrew  literature ;  we  have 
bound  ourselves  to  see  inspiration,  not  only  in  its  more  ele- 
vated, spiritual,  and  moral  parts,  but  in  those  which  are  not 
elevated,  spiritual,  or  even  moral.  We  torture  our  consciences 
into  approval  of  the  spoiling  of  the  Egyptians  by  a  fraud,  the 
slaughter  of  the  Canaanites,  the  slaying  of  Sisera,  the  hewing 
of  Agag  in  pieces  before  the  Lord,  and  David's  legacy  of  ven- 
geance; our  intellects  into  the  acceptance  of  the  Book  of 
Chronicles  as  authentic  history,  and  of  such  miracles  as  the 
stopping  of  the  sun,  the  conversion  of  Lot's  wife  into  a  pillar 
of  salt,  the  speaking  ass  of  Balaam,  the  destruction  of  the 
children  who  mocked  Elisha  by  a  bear,  and  the  sojourn  of 
Jonah  in  the  belly  of  a  whale.  In  church  we  read,  Avith  psalms 
of  universal  beauty,  psalms  of  Oriental  vindictiveness.  We 
constrain  ourselves  to  see  divine  meaning,  not  only  in  the 
sublime  passages  of  Isaiah,  but  in  the  obscurest  and  most 
incoherent  utterances  of  his  brother  prophets.  We  read  theo- 
logical mysteries  into  a  love-song  because  it  is  a  part  of  the 
sacred  volume.  Till  this  superstition  is  cast  out  we  shall  ill 
appreciate  what  is  really  divine  in  the  Old  Testament.  Not 
in  the  darker  side  of  the  Puritan  character  alone  are  the  evil 
effects  of  this  idolatry  to  be  traced. 

There  was  much  tliat  was  infinitely  memorable,  but  recent 
criticism  forbids  us  to  believe  that  there  was  anything  miracu- 
lous, in  the  history  of  Israel.  Wliatever  may  have  been  the 
local  origin  of  the  Jews,  who  spoke  the  same  language  as  the 
other  inhabitants  of  Canaan,  the  race,  we  may  be  sure,  was 
cast  in  the  same  primeval  mould  as  the  kindred  races.  The 
story  of  the  Patriarchs  and  the  Exodus  being  in  all  its  parts 


THE  JEWISH   QUESTION.  273 

—  the  primitive  theophanies  in  tlie  tents  of  Patriarchs,  the 
supernatural  birth  of  Isaac,  the  destruction  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrali,  the  transformation  of  Lot's  wife,  the  wrestling  of 
Jacob  with  Jehovah,  the  marvellous  story  of  Joseph,  the 
miraculous  multiplication  of  the  Israelites,  the  competition 
between  the  envoys  of  Jehovah  and  the  Egyptian  magicians, 
the  plagues  of  Egypt,  the  drying  up  of  the  Red  Sea,  the  forty 
years'  wandering  in  the  barren  Sinaitic  desert,  the  prodigies 
which  there  took  place,  the  giants  of  Canaan,  and  the  stopping 
of  the  sun  —  manifestly  poetical,  it  would  seem  that  the  narra- 
tive as  a  whole  must,  in  accordance  with  a  well-known  canon 
of  criticism,  be  dismissed  from  history  and  relegated  to  another 
domain.^  Of  the  exact  process  by  which  the  finer  spirits  of 
Israel  attained  a  tribal  monotheism,  which  at  last  verged  on 
monotheism  pure  and  simple,  and  carried  with  it  a  high 
morality,  while  the  grosser  spirits  were  always  hankering  after 
the  groves  and  images  of  their  idolatry,  no  exact  account  has 
been  given  us,  though  the  prophets,  as  moral  reformers,  clearly 
played  a  great  part  in  it.  But  it  involved  no  miracle,  since 
without  miracle  Socrates  and  Plato,  Marcus  Aurelius  and 
Epictetus  could  rise  to  the  same  level.  The  peculiar  service 
rendered  to  humanity  by  Judaism  was  the  identification  of 
religion  with  morality  through  the  conception  of  a  God  of 
righteousness  and  of  justice  and  mercy  as  his  law.  Against 
which  we  have  to  set  the  dark  shadow  cast  on  our  spiritual  life 
by  the  cruel  fanaticism  of  the  Jew  and  the  sombre  denuncia- 
tions of  his  prophets.  The  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  was  extraneous  to  Judaism,  and  was  rejected  by  one  of  its 
sects ;  the  tribal  idea  of  immortality  being  the  perpetuation  of 
the  family  in  the  tribe. 

Nor  is  there  anything  miraculous,  penal,  or  even  mysterious, 

1  It  seems  not  unlikely  from  analogy  that  the  story  of  the  Exodus  may 
be  in  part  an  explanation  of  the  institution  of  the  Passover  and  other 
Jewish  rites  and  customs  of  which  the  origin  was  lost.  The  ligures  of 
Jewish  captives  on  Egyptian  monuments  may  be  accounted  for  by  Egyp- 
tian conquest.  Nothing  can  be  less  satisfactory  than  Ilenan's  attempt  to 
rationalise  the  story  of  the  Patriarchs  and  tlie  Exodus. 

T 


274  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

about  the  Jewish  dispersion  or  its  commercial  character.  The 
case  of  Israel  is  one,  though  incomparably  the  most  sharply 
defined,  as  well  as  the  most  memorable,  of  a  number  of  cases 
of  parasitism,  to  borrow  that  phrase  from  botany.  Other  cases 
are  those  of  the  Armenians,  the  Parsees,  the  Greeks  of  the 
dispersion,  ancient  and  modern,  and  humblest  of  all,  the 
Gipsies,  by  the  disappearance  of  whose  wandering  camp  with 
its  swarthy  brood  from  the  country  wayside  a  feature  more 
dear  than  respectable  has  been  taken  from  the  landscape  of 
rural  life  in  England.  The  Italians,  when  their  country  was 
in  the  hands  of  foreign  powers,  showed  a  tendency  of  the  same 
kind.  The  dispersion  of  the  Jews  was  anterior  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  Jerusalem,  for  Paul  found  Jewish  settlements,  mer- 
cantile no  doubt,  wherever  he  went.  It  may  have  begun  with 
the  transplantation  to  Babylon,  and  have  been  extended  by  the 
transplantation  to  Egypt  under  the  Ptolemies.  But  its  prin- 
cipal cause  probably  was  the  narrowness  of  the  Jewish  terri- 
tory, combined  with  the  love  of  gain  in  the  Jew.  The  Hebrew 
was  the  near  kinsman  of  the  Phoenician,  who  by  the  narrowness 
of  his  territory  and  his  love  of  gain  was  likewise  impelled  to 
adventure;  and  Jewish  parasitism  is  the  counterpart,  under 
another  form,  of  that  PhcBnician  colonisation  which,  unlike  the 
colonisation  of  the  Greek,  was  strictly  mercantile  in  its  aim. 
The  land  of  the  Jew  was  not  so  maritime  as  that  of  the 
Phoenician ;  it  had  not  such  harbours,  such  store  of  timber  for 
ship-building  close  to  the  water,  or  such  sites  for  seaboard 
cities  like  Tyre  and  Sidon.  Moreover  when  the  Jewish  char- 
acter was  being  formed,  the  Philistine  held  the  coast.  Appar- 
ently, there  was  a  religious  party  in  Judea  which  wished  to 
make  the  people  simple  and  pious  tillers  of  the  soil,  and  from 
which  emanated  that  ideal  polity  of  husbandmen  with  heredi- 
tary lots  and  a  year  of  jubilee,  ascribed  by  its  framers  to  the 
great  lawgiver  of  the  race.  But  the  trading  instinct  was  too 
strong.  In  the  stories  of  the  patriarch  who  bought  the  birth- 
right of  his  hungry  brother,  of  the  Jewish  vizier  who  taught 
Pharaoh  how  to  obtain  the  surrender  of  all  the  freeholds  of  his 
people  by  taking  advantage  of  the  famine,  and  of  the  Hebrews 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  275 

who  spoiled  tlie  Egyptians  by  pretending  to  borrow  jewels 
which  they  never  meant  to  return,  we  see  the  gleamings  of  a 
character  which  was  not  likely  to  be  content  with  the  moderate 
gains  of  a  small  farming  community. 

Jewish  parasitism,  still  to  use  the  botanic  metaphor,  could 
not  fail  to  be  confirmed  by  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  which 
deprived  the  dispersed  nationality  of  its  centre,  though  the 
holy  city  even  in  its  desolation  remained  the  Mecca  of 
Judaism.  Renan  thinks  that  in  the  period  which  followed, 
Israel  took  up  extraneous  elements  by  conversion,  so  that  the 
supposed  purity  of  race  is  imaginary,  and  the  identity  of 
feature  is  only  the  imprint  of  a  common  dwelling-place  and 
mode  of  life ;  in  which  case  the  rhapsodies  of  "  Daniel  Deronda  " 
have  little  meaning.  There  is  a  passage  in  the  Talmud  which 
suggests  that  the  putative  descent  of  a  Gentile  from  the  ten 
lost  tribes  might  legalise  intermarriage  with  him.^  But 
nationality  was  preserved  by  the  Mosaic  law,  the  Talmud,  and 
circumcision,  the  last  being  probably  the  strongest  bond  of  all. 
"That  the  Jews,"  says  Spinoza,  "have  maintained  themselves 
so  long  in  spite  of  their  disorganised  or  dispersed  condition,  is 
not  at  all  to  be  wondered  at  when  it  is  considered  how  they 
separated  themselves  from  all  other  nationalities  in  such  a  way 
as  to  bring  upon  themselves  the  hatred  of  all,  and  that,  not 
only  by  external  rites  contrary  to  those  of  other  nations,  but 
also  by  the  sign  of  circumcision,  which  they  most  religiously 
retain." 

Any  otlier  race  of  strong  vitality  with  the  same  bonds  and 
barriers  might  have  retained  their  nationality  equally  well. 
The  Parsees,  though  a  much  weaker  community  in  their  origin, 
have  retained  their  separate  existence  for  eleven  centuries. 
The  Gipsies  appear  to  have  retained  their  separate  existence 
for  five  centuries.  There  is  therefore  nothing  miraculous 
about  the  wandering  Jew,  nor  need  we  suppose  that  he  is  the 
special  o])jeet  either  of  the  wrath  or  the  favour  of  heaven. 

Circumcision,  deemed  by  Spinoza  the  bond  of  Judaism,  is  a 

1  See  Yevamoth,  fol.  IG,  col.  2,  quoted  in  Hershon's  Talmudic  Miscel- 
lany, p.  134. 


216  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

practice  which,  if  Jews  are  to  be  citizens,  and  citizens  are  to 
be  patriots,  owing  the  community  not  bare  obedience  but  the 
allegiance  of  the  heart,  governments  would  seem  entitled  to 
restrain.  It  has  nothing  to  do  Avith  religious  opinion,  nor,  in 
repressing  it,  would  religious  liberty  be  infringed.  It  is  a 
barbarous  tribal  rite,  the  object  of  which  is  to  cut  off  the 
members  of  the  tribe  from  the  rest  of  mankind,  and  which  per- 
formed on  an  infant  dedicates  him  for  life,  without  his  own 
consent,  to  a  social  antagonism  not  less  contrary  to  his  proper 
relations  with  his  fellow  citizens  than  it  is  obsolete  and 
senseless.  That  Jewish  circumcision  was  really  tribal,  the 
account  of  its  origin  ^  seems  to  prove.  That  it  has  served  the 
purpose  of  tribal  isolation  since  the  dispersion  of  the  Jews  is 
certain.  Nor  could  a  more  effective  badge  or  barrier  have  been 
devised. 

Israel  henceforth  definitely  became  what  it  has  always 
remained,  a  tribe  scattered  yet  united,  sojourning  in  all  com- 
munities, blending  with  none,  and  forming  a  nation  within 
each  nation.  The  natural  tendency  of  a  race  without  a  country 
was  not  to  agriculture  but  to  such  trades  as  the  Jew  has  plied, 
especially  the  money  trade.  The  insecurity  and  uncertainty 
of  his  residence  would  deter  him  from  owning  property  which 
could  not  easily  be  removed.  Habit  became  ingrained  and  the 
attempts  to  form  agricultural  colonies  of  the  Jews  at  the  present 
day  appear  to  be  uniformly  unsuccessful.  Laurence  Oliphant 
was  interested  in  these  experiments,  feeling  that "  the  great  fault 
and  weakness  of  the  Jews  was  their  inability  for  handiwork; 
and  to  train  even  a  few  into  that  and  into  a  co-operative  man- 
ner of  life  would  be  a  great  gain.""  But  the  trading  instinct 
seems  to  have  been  too  inveterate  even  when  Jews  have  been 
carried  back  to  their  own  land.  The  Jew  has  thus  worn 
everywhere  the  unpopular  aspect  of  an  intruder,  who  by  his 

1  Genesis  xvii.  10-14  ;  Exodus  iv.  24-26.  If  circumcision  is  not  tribal, 
but  in  the  broad  sense  religious,  wliat  is  its  religious  import  and  why 
should  it  be  confined  to  race  ? 

2  Memoirs  of  the  Life  of  Laurence  Oliphant,  Vol.  II.,  p.  231.  By 
Margaret  Oliphant  W.  Oliphant. 


THE  JEWISH  QUESTION.  277 

financial  skill  was  absorbing  the  wealth  of  the  community 
without  adding  to  it.  Not  to  produce  but  to  make  a  market 
of  everything  has  been  his  general  tendency  and  forte.  Among 
other  things  he  has  made  a  market  of  war.  He  bonglit  Chris- 
tian captives  and  spoils  of  the  barbarian  invaders  of  the  Roman 
Empire.  He  bought  up  at  forced  sales  the  property  of  those 
who  were  departing  for  the  Crusades.  He  has  constantly 
followed  in  the  wake  of  armies,  making  his  profit  out  of  the 
havoc  and  out  of  the  recklessness  of  the  soldier.  General 
Grant  found  it  necessary  to  banish  Jews  from  his  camp.  On 
tlie  field  of  Austerlitz  Marshal  Lannes  bids  one  who  accosts 
liim  to  wait  till  he  has  stopped  the  depredations  of  the  Jews. 
That  the  Jew  clings  not  only  to  his  religion  but  to  his 
nationality,  and  that  the  two  are  blended  together,  or  rather 
are  identical,  can  hardly  be  doubted  when  we  find  in  a  Jewish 
Catechism  such  a  passage  as  this : 

"  Q.   What  other  ordinances  has  God  made  to  prevent  our  falling  into 
sin  ? 

"yl.   Those  which  forbid  our  associating  with  bad  men  or  intermarry- 
ing with  wicked  and  idolatrous  nations. 

"  '  Thoushalt  not  follow  a  niultiuulc  to  do  evil.'  —  Exod.  xxiii.  2. 
"'Neither  shalt  thou  make  marriage  with  them  (the  nations), 
thy  daughter  thou  shalt  not  give  to  his  son,  nor  liis  daughter 
shalt  thou  take  unto  thy  son.'  — Deut.  vii.  3. 
"  ^.   Is  this  latter  command  important  ? 

"  A.  Yes,  it  is  of  the  greatest  moment,  and  the  experience  of  the  past 
has  shown  its  importance. 
"  Q.    In  what  manner  ? 

"^.   Whenever  our  people  have  intermarried  with  other  nations,  they 
have  fallen  into  their  idolatries. 

"  '  But  they  were  mingled  among  the  heathen  and  learned  their 
works  ;  and  they  served  their  idols  which  were  a  snare  unto 
them.'— Ps.  cvi.  34,  35. 
"  Q.   Does  the  law  lay  much  stress  upon  this  precept  ? 
"  ^.   Yes,  we  are  repeatedly  enjoiiu'd  to  keep  from  admixture  of  race, 
and  many  of  the  laws  relating  to  the  soil  are  referable  to  this  subject." 

Again, 

"  Q.    Are  we  commanded  still  to  keep  ourselves  distinct  from  other 
nations  ? 


278  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

"  ^.  Assuredly;  we  may  love  them  as  ourselves,  help  them  in  their 
need,  and  labour  with  them  for  the  good  of  our  fellow-creatures,  but  we 
must  not  intermarry  with  them,  lest  we  should  be  led  away  from  the 
Law."i 

The  Eoman  Catholic  Church,  it  is  true,  discourages  mixed 
marriages  on  religious  grounds.  Uut  she  does  not  teach  her 
children  that  "assuredly  they  are  a  nation,"  and  she  does  try 
to  bring  all  mankind  within  her  fold.  If  the  Jcavs,  as  one  of 
their  chief  Kabbis  seems'  to  intimate,  are  not  a  nation  but  a 
church,  why  do  they  not  proselytise?  How  came  it  to  be  said 
of  them,  by  one  of  their  own  race,  that  they  no  more  desire 
to  make  converts  than  does  the  House  of  Lords?  However, 
supposing  religion  to  be  the  bond,  it  is  the  religion  of  Moses. 
Does  not  the  religion  of  Moses  separate  the  people  of  Jehovah 
from  mankind?  The  Eastern  Jew,  the  Russian  or  Polish  Jew, 
and  the  orthodox  Jew  everywhere,  it  appears,  still  hold  by  the 
Talmud.  Mr.  Hershon  says  that  "to  the  orthodox  Jew  the 
Talmud  is  like  the  encircling  ocean, —  inserts  itself  into  and 
makes  itself  felt  in  every  nook  and  corner  of  his  existence, 
like  an  atmosphere  encompasses  the  whole  round  of  his  being, 
penetrates  into  all  centres  of  vitality,  presses  with  incumbent 
weight  upon  every  class  irrespective  of  age  or  sex  or  rank,  is 
all-inspiring,  all-including,  and  all-controlling,  covers  in  tlie 
regard  of  the  illuminated  the  whole  field  of  life,  and  with  its 
principles  affects,  or  ought  to  affect,  every  thought  and  every 
action  of  every  member  of  the  Jewish  state."  The  wealthy 
and  enlightened  Jew  of  London,  Paris,  or  New  York,  perhaps, 
is  no  longer  Talmudic;  his  religion  is  probably  Theism  com- 
bined with  a  vague  belief  hi  the  sanctity  and  the  superior 
destiny  of  his  race;  yet  even  he  keeps  himself  much  apart  from 
the  Gentiles,  and  if  he  remains  a  Jew  at  all  he  must  observe 
the  law  of  Moses,  that  is,  a  separatist  law.  In  fact  those  who 
have  studied  the  subject  carefully  say  that  alike  by  the  rich 
Jew  of  Bayswater  and  the  middle  class  Jew  of  Highbury  the 
safeguards  of  tribalism  are  kept  as  far  as  possible  without 

'  Jewish  School  Books  —  No.  1.  The  Law  of  Mm^px,  a  Cat.crhism  of  the 
Jewish  Religion,  new  edition,  pp.  68,  69.     By  the  liev.  A.  P.  Mendes. 


THE   JEWISH  QUESTION.  279 

actual  offence  to  Gentile  society.  The  "Polish"  Jew,  alike  in 
Poland  and  in  Whitechapel,  is  still  strongly  Talmudic.  If  the 
Jew  keeps  Christian  servants  in  his  house  it  is  to  do  for  him 
what  he  is  not  permitted  to  do  for  himself  on  the  Sabbath. 
By  making  this  use  of  the  heathen  he  shows  that  Moab  is  still 
his  wash  pot. 

That  the  Jews  have,  as  a  rule,  observed  the  laws  and  per- 
formed their  civic  duties  in  the  countries  of  their  sojourn,  no 
one  Avill  deny,  and  it  was  natural  that  they  should  not  take 
more  upon  them  than  they  could  help  of  public  imposts  which 
to  them  were  unsweetened  by  patriotism.  In  countries  where 
military  service  is  part  of  the  duties  of  a  citizen,  as  it  is  in 
Germany,  they  have  not  sought  to  evade  it,  though  they  do 
not  voluntarily  enlist.  It  is  understood  that  they  behaved 
well  as  soldiers  in  the  German  army.  Wealth  has  inclined 
them  to  conservatism,  and  the  stories  about  their  sinister 
activities  in  the  French  Revolution  are  fables,  though  Karl 
Marx  and  Lassalle  were  the  founders  of  Socialism,  and  Judaism 
is  believed  to  have  contributed  its  quota  to  Nihilism  in  Russia. 
When  a  Jew  plays  revolutionist,  we  may  generally  expect  to 
see  him  top  the  part.  To  top  the  j^art  is  natural  when  it  is 
played  in  a  spirit  of  exploitation.  Some  Jews  have  been 
noted  as  citizens  for  beneficence  not  confined  to  their  own 
tribe.  It  is  likely,  too,  that  in  lands  Avhere  the  Jew  has  been 
long  established,  the  sentiment  of  home  has  grown  strong 
enough  to  countervail  that  of  tribal  nationality  in  his  breast, 
and  to  make  removal  very  cruel.  Still,  he  is  a  Jew  dwelling 
among  Gentiles.  He  is  one  of  the  Chosen  People.  He  has  a 
nationality  apart,  with  Messianic  hopes,  more  or  less  definite, 
of  its  own,  and  vague  anticipations  of  future  ascendancy.  It 
seems  impossible  tliat  any  man  should  belong  in  heart  to  two 
nationalities  and  be  a  patriot  of  each.  He  may  be  a  conform- 
ing and  dutiful  citizen  of  the  community  among  which  he 
dwells  as  long  as  there  is  no  conflict  of  national  interest.  But 
when  there  is  a  conflict  of  national  interests  his  attachment  to 
his  own  nationality  will  prevail. 

Mr.  Oliphant,  in  his  "Land  of  Gilead, "  dwells  more  than 


280  QUESTIONS  OF  THE   DAY. 

once  on  the  great  advantages  which  any  European  government 
might  gain  over  its  rivals  by  an  alliance  with  the  Jews. 

"  It  is  evident,"  he  says,  "that  the  policy  which  I  proposed  to  the 
Turkish  government  [i.e.  the  restoration  of  Palestine]  might  be  adopted 
with  equal  advantage  by  England  or  any  other  European  Power.  The 
nation  that  espoused  the  cause  of  the  Jews  and  their  restoration  to 
Palestine,  would  be  able  to  rely  on  their  support  in  financial  operations 
on  the  largest  scale,  upon  the  powerful  influence  which  they  wield  in  the 
press  of  many  countries,  and  upon  their  political  co-operation  in  those 
countries,  which  would  of  necessity  tend  to  paralyse  the  diplomatic  and 
even  hostile  action  of  Powers  antagonistic  to  the  one  with  which  they 
were  allied.  Owing  to  the  financial,  political,  and  commercial  importance 
to  which  the  Jews  have  now  attained,  there  is  probably  no  one  Power 
in  Europe  that  would  prove  so  valuable  an  ally  to  a  nation  likely  to  be 
engaged  in  a  European  war,  as  this  wealthy,  powerful,  and  cosmopolitan 
race."  ^ 

Perhaps  the  writer  of  these  words  hardly  realised  the  state 
of  things  which  they  present  to  our  minds.  We  see  the 
governments  of  Europe  bidding  against  each  other  for  the 
favour  and  support  of  an  anti-national  money  power,  which 
would  itself  be  morally  unfettered  by  any  allegiance,  would  be 
ever  ready  to  betray  and  secretly  paralyse  for  its  own  objects 
the  governments  under  the  protection  of  which  its  members 
were  living,  and  of  course  would  be  always  gaining  strength 
and  predominance  at  the  expense  of  a  divided  and  subservient 
world.  The  allusion  to  tlie  influence  wielded  by  the  Jews  in 
the  European  press  has  a  particularly  sinister  sound.  In  the 
social  as  in  the  physical  sphere  new  diseases  are  continually 
making  their  appearance.  One  of  the  new  social  diseases  of 
the  present  day,  and  certainly  not  the  least  deadly,  is  the 
perversion  of  public  opinion  in  the  interest  of  private  or 
sectional  objects,  by  the  clandestine  manipulation  of  the 
press. 

Such  a  relation  as  that  in  which  Judaism  has  placed  itself  to 
the  people  of  each  country,  forming  everywhere  a  nation  within 
the  nation,  cherishing  the  pride  of  a  Chosen  People,  regarding 

1  The  Land  of  Gilead,  p.  503.     By  Laurence  Oliphant. 


THE   JEWISH   QUESTION.  281 

those  among  whom  it  dwelt  as  Gentiles  and  unclean,  shrinking 
from  social  intercourse  with  them,  engrossing  their  wealth  by 
financial  skill,  but  not  adding  to  it  by  labour,  plying  at  the 
same  time  a  trade  which,  however  legitimate,  is  always 
unpopular  and  makes  many  victims,  could  not  possibly  fail  to 
lead,  as  it  has  led,  to  mutual  hatred  and  the  troubles  which 
ensue.  Certain  as  may  be  the  gradual  prevalence  of  good  over 
evil,  it  is  a  futile  optimism  which  denies  that  there  have  been 
calamities  in  history.  One  of  them  has  been  the  dispersion  of 
the  Jews.  As  was  said  before,  it  is  incredible  that  all  the 
nations  should  have  mistaken  a  power  of  good  for  a  power  of 
evil,  or  have  been  unanimous  in  ingratitude  to  a  power  of 
good.  jN^oue  of  them  want  to  hurt  the  Jew  or  to  interfere 
with  his  religious  belief;  what  they  all  want  is  that  if  possible 
he  should  go  to  his  own  land.  As  it  is.  Western  Europe  and 
the  western  hemisphere  are  threatened  with  a  fresh  invasion 
on  the  largest  scale  by  the  departure  of  Jews  from  Russia. 
American  politics  are  already  beginning  to  feel  the  influence. 
A  party,  to  catch  the  Jewish  vote,  puts  into  its  platform  a 
denunciation  of  Kussia,  the  best  friend  of  the  American 
Republic  in  its  day  of  trial.  Jews  are  becoming  strong  in  the 
British  House  of  Commons  and  one  of  them  the  other  day 
appealed  to  his  compatriots  to  combine  their  forces  against 
the  political  party  which  had  been  opposed  to  Jewish 
interests. 

That  the  Jew  should  be  de-rabbinised  and  de-nationalised,. 
in  other  words  that  he  should  renounce  the  Talmud,  the  tribal 
parts  of  the  Mosaic  law,  and  circumcision,  is  the  remedy  pro- 
posed by  M.  Leroy-Beaulieu,  a  writer  by  no  means  unfavour- 
able to  Israel.  There  seems  to  be  no  other  way  of  putting  an 
end  to  a  conflict  which  is  gradually  enveloping  all  nations. 
This  being  done,  Avhatever  gifts  and  graces  may  belong  to  the 
race  of  Moses,  David,  and  Isaiah,  of  the  writers  of  the  Book 
of  Job  and  of  the  Psalms,  of  Judas  Maccabseus  and  Hillel,  will 
have  free  course  and  be  glorified.  If  Israel  has  any  message 
for  humanity,  as  he  seems  to  think,  it  will  be  heard.  Jewish 
merit  will  no  longer  be  viewed  with  jealousy  and  distrust  as 


282  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

having  a  sinister  confederation  at  its  back;  and  no  man  need 
fear  in  the  present  age  that  in  any  highly  civilised  community 
he  will  suffer  persecution  or  disparagement  of  any  sort  on 
account  of  his  religion.  But  the  present  relation  is  untenable. 
The  Jew  will  have  either  to  return  to  Jerusalem  or  to  forget 
it,  give  his  heart  to  the  laud  of  his  birth  and  mingle  with 
humanity. 


THE  IRISH   QUESTION. 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION. 

It  is  proposed  that  Celtic  and  Catholic  Ireland  shall  be  made 
a  separate  nation  with  a  Parliament  of  its  own,  and  that  into 
this  nation  Saxon  and  Protestant  Ulster  shall,  against  its  will 
and  in 'spite  of  its  passionate  appeals  to  the  honour  of  the 
British  x^eople,  be  forced.  A  separate  Irish  nation  is  what 
Home  Eule  means.  Devolution  of  the  business  of  an  over- 
loaded Parliament  on  a  local  Assembly,  though  sometimes  so- 
phistically  confounded  with  Home  Eule,  is  a  very  different 
thing.  To  devolution  there  is  no  objection,  unless  Parliament 
can,  by  giving  less  of  its  time  to  faction  fighting,  find  more 
time  to  do  the  business,  and  if  in  a  country  so  united  in  inter- 
est subjects  purely  local  and  at  the  same  time  important  enough 
to  make  work  for  a  legislature  can  be  found. 

Why  are  the  Celtic  and  Catholic  districts  of  Ireland,  any 
more  than  the  Celtic  and  Methodist  districts  of  Wales,  to  be 
severed  from  the  United  Kingdom  and  invested  with  a  separate 
nationality?  One  reason,  or  rather  one  motive,  operating  in  a 
certain  quarter  presents  itself  to  view  as  often  as  from  the 
gallery  of  the  House  of  Commons  we  look  down  upon  the  group 
of  Irish  members,  and  naark  what  its  demeanour  indicates,  or 
read  the  account  of  the  disputes  between  its  two  sections  over 
the  party  fund.  If  the  Home  Eule  Bill  were  passed,  these 
men  would,  besides  commanding  a  legislature  and  a  govern- 
ment, enter  into  the  control  of  a  great  revenue  and  into  the 
possession  of  a  patronage  which,  as  at  the  outset  everything 
would  have  to  be  given  away  at  once,  would  be  dazzling.  A 
fanatical  hatred,  wliich  breaks  forth  whenever  it  is  not 
restrained  by  policy,  would  be  gratified  at  the  same  time. 

But  another  separatist  interest  besides  that  of  the  squadron 

285 


286  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY, 

of  Irish  politicians  is  at  work  for  the  dismemberment  of  the 
United  Kingdom.  On  the  other  side  of  St.  George's  Channel 
stands  the  Catholic  Priesthood,  ready  as  soon  as  Ireland  is  cast 
adrift  by  Great  Britain  to^renew  its  reign.  It  stands  with  the 
Encyclical  and  Syllabus  in  its  hand,  to  be  executed  wherever 
and  whenever  it  has  the  power. 

These  two  interests  command  by  organisations,  political  or 
sacerdotal,  before  which  the  peasant  cowers,  the  people  of  the 
Celtic  and  Catholic  districts.  The  voice  which  we  hear,  though 
it  is  called  that  of  Ireland,  is  theirs. 

There  has  never  been  an  Irish  nation.  The  savage  tribes, 
constantly  waging  intertribal  war,  in  whose  occupation  Strong- 
bow  found  the  island,  were  not  a  nation.  The  Celtic  tribes 
and  the  Anglo-Saxon  Pale,  waging  internecine  war  with  each 
other,  while  the  wars  among  the  tribes  themselves  never 
ceased,  were  not  a  nation.  The  English  or  Scotch  and  Protes- 
tant colonies  in  Leinster  and  Ulster,  encircled  by  the  Celtic 
and  Catholic  tribes,  with  which  internecine  war  was  still  car- 
ried on,  were  not  a  nation.  The  dominant  race  of  Grattan's 
Parliament,  and  the  subject  race  which  was  excluded  from  that 
Parliament  and  treated  by  it  as  a  race  of  political  and  social 
serfs,  were  not  a  .nation.  Tyrconnel's  Celtic  and  Catholic 
Parliament,  with  its  sweeping  proscription  of  all  the  Saxons 
and  Protestants,  was  not  even  so  much  as  Grattan's  Parliament 
the  Parliament  of  a  nation.  Nor  would  the  Parnellite  Parlia- 
ment be  the  Parliament  of  a  nation  when  it  proceeded,  as 
assuredly  and  almost  avowedly  it  would,  to  legislate  in  the 
same  spirit. 

There  are  not  within  the  range  of  the  United  Kingdom  any 
other  two  districts  between  which  so  strong  an  antagonism 
prevails  as  prevails  between  Celtic  Ireland  and  Ulster,  of 
which  it  is  proposed  by  Liberals  and  philosophers  to  compound 
with  the  bayonet  this  Irish  nation. 

The  populations  of  the  two  islands  are  now  intermixed. 
There  is  a  large  Saxon  element  in  Ireland;  there  are  masses 
of  Celtic  Irish  in  Great  Britain,  as  the  British  artisan  knows 
to  his  cost.     The  language  of  both  islands  is  the  same ;  Erse, 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  287 

at  least,  is  on  the  verge  of  extinction,  and  Ireland  lias  no 
literature  but  the  English.  She  has  no  political  institutions 
but  those  which  she  has  derived  from  England.  She  has  no 
history  of  her. own  except  one  of  savage  wars  of  race  and 
religion.  The  Celts  have  no  native  dynasty  or  centre  of 
political  unity  of  any  kind,  unless  it  be  their  religious  subjec- 
tion to  a  foreign  priest. 

The  Channel  has  been  a  great  obstacle  to  union,  but  it  is 
now  bridged  by  steam.  If  an  arm  of  the  sea  were  always  to 
be  fatal  to  union,  Corsica  could  not  be  united  to  France, 
Sardinia  and  Sicily  to  Italy,  Majorca  and  Minorca  to  Spain, 
the  Ionian  Islands  to  Greece,  Prince  Edward  Island  to  Canada. 
The  central  desert  of  America  is  a  good  deal  broader  than  the 
Irish  Channel,  yet  it  does  not  prevent  the  union  of  Pacific  with 
Atlantic  States.  Politicians  who  propose  to  unite  the  ends  of 
the  earth  under  an  Imperial  Federation  can  hardly  say  that 
nature  forbids  the  union  of  the  two  British  islands  under  one 
government.  The  population  of  the  two  islands  is  not  so 
large  as  that  of  France,  nothing  like  so  large  as  that  of  Ger- 
many, Eussia,  or  the  United  States.  Not  Kent  itself  is  more 
thoroughly  incorporated  with  the  United  Kingdom  than  the 
North  of  Ireland.  Not  Kent  itself  in  being  torn  from  the 
United  Kingdom  would  feel  a  greater  pang. 

The  map  shows  at  once  that  the  destinies  of  the  two  islands 
are  linked  together.  The  two  will,  in  all  probability,  either 
be  united  or  be  enemies,  and  if  they  are  enemies,  woe  to  the 
weaker.  The  smaller  island  is  cut  off  from  the  continent  by 
the  larger  and  thus  placed  under  its  power.  Economically,  the 
two  are  complements  of  each  other.  Great  Britain  having  the 
w^heat  land  and  the  coal,  while  Ireland  has  the  grass.  When 
people  wail  over  the  Irish  exodus,  they  forget  the  numbers  of 
Irish  who  find  bread  in  the  manufacturing  cities  of  Great 
Britain,  and  who,  while  Ireland  remains  in  the  United  King- 
dom, are  as  much  in  their  own  country  as  if  they  were  at  Cork. 

Territorial  rapacity  is  folly  as  well  as  wickedness.  Let 
every  nation  be  content  with  that  which  by  nature  it  has.  But 
a  nation  has  a  right  to  maintain  its  natural  boundaries  against 


288  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

secession  as  well  as  against  invasion.  This,  Americans,  at  all 
events,  cannot  deny.  The  doctrine  of  rebellion  as  a  universal 
right  and  an  object  of  unlimited  sympathy  could  not  survive 
the  first  shot  of  the  War  of  Secession.  By  the  loss  of  the 
sister  island.  Great  Britain  would  be  reduced  to  a  second-rate 
power;  amidst  a  circle  of  military  nations  she  would  live  in 
peril.  Her  citizens,  at  least,  may  be  pardoned  for  thinking 
that  her  fall  would  be  a  misfortune  not  to  herself  alone,  that 
her  influence  would  be  missed  by  the  nations  of  her  hemi- 
sphere, and  that  European  progress  would  lose  its  moderating 
power.  Italian  Liberals  are  among  the  best  of  Liberals. 
How  much  sympathy  have  they  shown  with  Irish  secession? 

Irish  history  is  a  piteoi;s  tale.  But  there  is  no  sailing  up 
the  stream  of  time.  We  must  deal  with  things  as  they  are 
now,  not  immolate  present  policy  to  the  evil  memories  of  the 
past.  Detestable  is  the  art  of  the  demagogue  who  rakes  up 
those  memories  to  obtain  for  his  schemes  from  passion  the 
support  which  reason  and  patriotism  would  not  give.  No 
living  man  is  now  responsible  for  anything  done  seven  cen- 
turies or  a  single  century  ago.  He  who  persists  in  accusing 
England  of  cruelty  to  Ireland,  when  the  last  three  or  four 
generations  of  Englishmen  have  been  as  much  as  possible  the 
reverse  of  cruel,  only  gives  way  to  his  evil  temper  and  darkens 
counsel. 

Race  character  may  not  be  congenital  or  indelible.  But  there 
is  no  disputing  that  its  influence  has  been  strong,  and  in  the 
case  of  the  Celt  is  marked.  Mommsen,  in  a  well-known  pass- 
age, ends  a  review  of  Celtic  character,  with  its  graces  and 
Aveaknesses,  by  pronouncing  the  race  politically  useless.  He 
holds,  and  declares  his  judgment  in  language  too  frank  to 
be  graciously  repeated,  that  the  Celt  politically  is  only 
material  to  be  worked  up  by  stronger  races. ^  Mommsen  has 
Bismarckian  iron  in  his  blood  as  he  has  tlie  tramp  of  the 
German  armies  in  his  style.  But  Bishop  Lightfoot  has  no 
Bismarckian  iron  in  his  blood.     He  says: 

1  See  his  History  of  Borne,  Bk.  V.,  ch.  vii. 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  289 

"The  main  features  of  the  Gaulish  character  are  traced  with  great 
distinctness  by  the  Roman  writers.  Quickness  of  apprehension,  prompti- 
tude in  action,  great  impressibility,  an  eager  craving  after  knowledge,  — 
this  is  the  brighter  aspect  of  the  Celtic  character.  Inconstant  and  quar- 
relsome, treacherous  in  their  dealings,  incapable  of  sustained  effort,  easfly 
disheartened  by  failure,  —  such  they  appear  when  viewed  on  their  darker 
side.  It  is  curious  to  note  the  same  eager,  inquisitive  temper  revealing 
itself  under  widely  different  circumstances,  at  opposite  limits  both  of  time 
and  space,  in  their  early  barbarism  in  the  West  and  their  worn-out  civi- 
lisation in  the  East.  The  great  Roman  captain  relates  how  the  Gauls 
would  gather  about  any  merchant  or  traveller  who  came  in  their  way, 
detaining  him  even  against  his  will,  and  eagerly  pressing  him  for  news. 
A  late  Greek  rhetorician  commends  the  Galatians  as  more  keen  and 
quicker  of  apprehension  than  the  genuine  Greeks,  adding  that  the  moment 
they  catch  sight  of  a  philosopher  they  cling  to  the  skirts  of  his  cloak  as 
the  steel  does  to  the  magnet.  It  is  chiefly,  however,  on  the  more  forbid- 
ding features  of  their  character  that  contemporary  writers  dwell.  Fickle- 
ness is  the  term  used  to  express  their  temperament.  This  instability  of 
character  was  the  great  difficulty  against  which  Caesar  had  to  contend  in 
his  dealings  with  the  Gaul.  He  complains  that  they  all,  with  scarcely  an 
exception,  are  impelled  by  the  desire  of  change.  Nor  did  they  show 
more  constancy  in  the  discharge  of  their  religious  than  of  their  social  obli- 
gations. The  hearty  zeal  with  which  they  embraced  the  Apostle's  teach- 
ing, followed  by  their  rapid  apostasy,  is  only  an  instance  out  of  many  of 
the  reckless  facility  with  which  they  adopted  and  discarded  one  religious 
system  after  another.  To  St.  Paul,  who  had  had  much  bitter  experience 
of  hollow  profession  and  fickle  purposes,  this  extraordinary  levity  was 
yet  a  matter  of  unfeigned  surprise.  '  I  marvel,'  he  says,  '  that  ye  are 
changing  so  quickly.'  He  looked  upon  it  as  some  strange  fascination. 
'  Ye  senseless  Gauls,  who  did  bewitch  you  ? '  The  language  in  which 
Roman  writers  speak  of  the  martial  courage  of  the  Gauls,  impetuous  at 
the  first  onset,  but  rapidly  melting  in  the  heat  of  the  fray,  well  describes 
the  short-lived  prowess  of  these  converts  in  the  warfare  of  the  Christian 
Church. 

"  Equally  important  in  its  relation  to  St.  Paul's  epistle  is  the  type  of 
religious  worship  which  seems  to  have  pervaded  the  Celtic  nations.  The 
Gauls  are  described  as  a  superstitious  people,  given  over  to  ritual  observ- 
ances. Nor  is  it,  perhaps,  a  mere  accident  that  the  only  Asiatic  Gaul  of 
whom  history  aifords  more  than  a  passing  glimpse,  Ueiotarus,  the  client 
of  Cicero,  in  his  extravagant  devotion  to  augury,  bears  out  the  character 
ascribed  to  the  parent  race."  i 


The  Epistles  of  St-  Paul :  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  Introduction,  I. 


290  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

In  "France  the  Celt  underwent  Roman  and  afterwards  Frank- 
isli  training.  What  lie  would  have  been  without  that  training 
Brittany,  amiable  but  thriftless,  slatternly,  priest-ridden,  saint- 
worshipping,  legendary,  is  left  to  tell.  We  know  how  even 
the  Celt  who  had  undergone  Roman  and  Prankish  training 
behaved  in  the  French  Revolution.  ISTor  is  it  likely  that  the 
strongest  and  most  gifted  part  of  the  race  would  be  that  which 
in  the  primeval  struggle  for  existence  was  thrust  away  to  the 
remotest  island  of  the  West. 

The  mountains,  bogs,  rivers,  and  forests,  for  forests  there 
then  were,  of  Ireland,  like  the  isolated  glens  of  the  Scotch 
Highlands,  helped  to  perpetuate  the  tribal  divisions  with  their 
clannish  ways  and  sentiments,  the  mould  in  which  the  political 
character  of  the  Irish  was  formed;  for  the  Celtic  Irishman  is 
still  not  a  constitutionalist  but  a  clansman,  with  clannish 
attachments,  clannish  feuds,  and  clannish  love  of  political 
spoils.  Between  the  general  influence  of  race  and  that  of  the 
local  circumstances  of  the  Irish  Celt,  a  character  was  formed 
which  is  as  distinct  as  that  of  any  individual  man,  and  which 
it  would  be  as  absurd  to  overlook  or  to  pretend  not  to  see  in 
dealing  with  the  race  as  it  would  be  to  overlook  or  to  pretend 
not  to  see  personal  character  in  dealing  with  a  man.  That 
the  Irish  Celt  has  gifts,  that  under  a  good  master  or  commander 
he  makes  a  good  worker  or  soldier,  nobody  who  knows  him 
will  deny.  Nobody  who  knows  him  will  deny  his  social 
charm.  Nobody  who  knows  how  Irish  emigrants  have  been 
assisted  by  their  kinsmen  in  America  will  deny  that  the  Irish- 
man has  strong  domestic  affections  and  a  generous  heart.  But 
nobody  who  is  not  angling  for  his  vote  will  affirm  that  in 
Cork,  in  Liverpool  or  Glasgow,  in  New  York,  in  the  Aus- 
tralian colonies,  or  anywhere,  he  has  as  yet  become  a  good 
citizen  under  free  institutions.  Nobody  who  is  not  angling 
for  his  vote  will  affirm  that  he  is  by  nature  law-abiding,  or 
that  when  his  passions  are  excited,  whether  his  victims  be  his 
agrarian  enemies  in  Ireland  or  the  hapless  negroes  in  New 
York,  he  is  not  capable  of  dreadful  crimes.  The  Anglo-Saxon, 
when  he  takes  to  rioting,  may  be  brutal;  in  the  Lord  George 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  291 

Gordon  riots  he  was  brutal  enough;  but  he  does  not  card  or 
hough,  nor  does  he  cut  off  the  udders  of  kine.  The  Phoenix 
Park  murders  were  a  Celtic,  not  an  Anglo-Saxon,  deed. 

Lists  are  given  of  Irish  statesmen  and  commanders,  such  as 
Canning,  Castlereagh,  Clare,  Wellington,  Wellesley,  Grattan, 
Plunket,  the  two  Lawrences,  Napier,  Koberts,  and  Wolseley. 
These  are  Saxon,  not  Celtic  Irish.  Even  Parnell  and  Ikitt 
before  him  were  of  that  intrusive  race  which  it  was  the  object 
of  their  movement  to  expel.  Of  Parnell,  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor 
tells  us  that  his  manner  was  Saxon  in  its  reserve  and  his  speech 
was  still  more  Saxon  in  its  rigidity.  Parnell  probably  owed 
largely  to  the  coolness  and  tenacity  of  his  Saxon  cliaracter  liis 
despotic  ascendancy  over  his  train.  There  has  been  no  Celtic 
leader  of  eminence  except  O'Connell,  who  was  an  agitator,  not 
a  statesman.  Burke  had  in  him  a  Celtic  strain  which  showed 
itself  in  his  more  declamatory  and  passionate  moods.  That 
the  Celt  is  politically  weak,  ten  centuries  of  wail  without 
achievement  are  surely  proof  enough. 

In  the  North  of  Ireland  are  prosperous  industry  and  com- 
merce, with  Protestant  liberty  of  conscience.  In  the  South  are 
unthrift  and  poverty  under  the  dominion  of  the  priest.  The 
political  institutions  and  the  relation  to  Great  Britain  are 
exactly  the  same  in  both  cases;  it  seems  to  follow  that  tlie 
character  of  the  people  is  not. 

When,  beckoned  by  tribal  revenge,  the  Norman  StrongboAv 
landed  in  Ireland,  he  found  there  no  germ  of  national  unity 
beyond  the  transient  ascendancy  of  powerful  chiefs,  nor,  except 
in  the  little  Danish  settlements  of  the  seaboard,  any  solid 
civilisation,  though  there  was  an  aptitude  for  decorative  art, 
of  which  the  monuments  are  elaborately  carved  crosses,  illu- 
minated books,  the  golden  ornaments  displayed  in  the  Celtic 
Museum  at  Dublin.  Everywhere  were  tribal  divisions  and 
intertribal  wars.  The  brief  reign  of  the  powerful  chief,  or 
king,  as  he  is  styled,  Brian  Boru,  had  served  only  to  show  by 
its  result  the  prevalence  of  the  centrifugal  force.  The  Brehon 
Law  was  common  to  the  tribes,  but  it  was  a  mere  repertory  of 
tribal   customs,   real   or    imaginary;    the   jurisdiction    of   its 


292  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

courts  went  not  beyond  the  assessment  of  damages  or  the 
imposition  of  fines ;  nor  was  there  any  authority  to  enforce  it, 
saving  habit  and  a  precarious  opinion.  There  was  hardly  any 
agriculture;  cattle  were  the  only  wealth.  There  were  no 
cities ;  the  Irish  indeed  have  not  founded  cities  either  in  their 
own  land  or  in  America,  though  as  labourers  they  have  helped 
to  build  many.  The  Church,  a  surviving  remnant,  like  that 
in  Wales,  of  the  Church  of  the  British  Celts  before  Augustine, 
ruder  than  that  of  Rome,  but  not  more  Protestant,  had  for  a 
moment  marvellously  shone  in  missionary  enterprise,  and,  if 
Irish  traditions  are  true,  in  pursuit  of  learning.  But  without 
cities  it  could  not  be  opulent  or  imposing.  It  seems  to  have 
suffered  severely  at  the  hands  of  the  Danes.  It  was  presently 
crushed  under  the  hoofs  of  tribal  barbarism  and  rapacity,  and 
stretched  out  its  hands  to  Canterbury  for  aid.  Its  chief 
monuments  are  those  romantic  Round  Towers,  its  refuges 
probably  in  time  of  raids.  The  chief,  whose  revenge  had 
called  in  Strongbow,  after  the  battle  plucked  from  a  heap  of 
heads  that  of  his  enemy,  and  mangled  it  with  his  teeth. 

Alarmed  at  the  progress  of  his  vassal,  Henry  II.  produced 
and  proceeded  to  execute  a  Papal  decree,  awarding  him  the 
lordship  of  Ireland  under  the  Pope  if  he  would  reform  the 
manners  of  the  people,  annex  their  Church  to  the  dominion  of 
Rome,  and  make  the  island  pay  Peter's  pence.  This  warrant, 
a  laughing-stock  now,  was  deemed  valid  in  those  days.  The 
Anglo-Norman  conquest  of  Ireland,  falsely  called  the  English 
conquest,  was  thus  a  supplement  to  the  conquest  of  England 
by  a  Norman  who  bore  the  signet  ring  of  Rome  and  came  to 
subdue  the  national  Church  of  England  for  the  Papacy  as  well 
as  the  kingdom  for  himself.  The  Synod  of  Cashel  at  which 
the  Irish  Church  became  the  vassal  of  Rome  was  the  counter- 
part of  the  Synod  of  Winchester  at  which  the  English  Church 
bowed  her  neck  to  the  same  yoke.  Henry  received  the  sub- 
mission of  the  chiefs,  and  though  at  his  departure  they 
returned  to  their  wild  life,  they  had  become  his  liegemen, 
and  he  and  his  successors  might  thenceforth  deem  themselves 
lawful  lords  of  Ireland. 


THE   IRISH  QUESTION.  293 

Unhappily,  neither  Henry  II.  nor  his  successors  for  three 
centuries  made  good  their  lordship.  The  Norman  conquest  of 
England  by  a  great  army,  with  the  king  at  its  head,  was  com- 
plete ;  it  gave  birth  over  the  whole  country  to  a  new  order  of 
things  and  to  an  aristocracy  which  presently  became  national, 
and  at  length  the  champion  and  trustee  of  national  liberty. 
But  in  Ireland  once  only  after  Henry  II.,  iu  the  person  of 
Eichard  II.,  did  the  king  with  the  power  of  the  kingdom  for  a 
moment  appear  on  the  scene.  The  centre  of  the  English 
power  was  distant,  the  natural  route  lay  through  Welsh  moun- 
tains, with  a  wild  population  long  unsubdued  or  half  subdued, 
while  the  arm  of  the  sea  was  broad  in  the  days  before  steam. 
A  chimerical  ambition  diverted  the  power  of  the  monarchy 
from  its  proper  work  of  consolidating  the  island  realm  to  what 
seemed  brighter  and  richer  fields  of  enterprise  in  France. 
Ireland  was  left  to  private  adventure,  which,  from  its  weak- 
ness, its  want  of  unity,  the  difficulties  of  a  country  ill  suited 
for  the  action  of  men-at-arms  or  archers,  and  the  mobility  of 
pastoral  tribes,  totally  failed.  The  outcome  was  an  Anglo- 
Norman  Pale,  with  Dublin  and  the  grave  of  Strongbow  for  its 
centre,  carrying  on  incessant  war  with  the  Septs,  Avhich  con- 
tinued to  war  with  each  other  and  to  lift  each  other's  cattle  at 
the  same  time.  Some  of  the  Anglo-Norman  Barons,  finding 
tribal  even  more  lawless  than  feudal  anarchy,  doffed  the 
hauberk,  donned  the  saffron  mantle  of  Irish  tribalism,  and 
became  chiefs  of  bastard  Septs.  The  Crown,  by  enactments 
which  sound  like  an  inhuman  perpetuation  of  the  estrange- 
ment between  the  races,  strove  to  prevent  this  lapse  of  the 
Englishry  into  barbarism,  but  strove  in  vain. 

Without  a  king,  the  feudal  system,  introduced  into  Ireland, 
lacked  its  regulative  and  controlling  power.  The  grantees  of 
great  fiefs  were  counts  palatine  without  a  suzerain.  When, 
by  the  degeneration  of  the  Anglo-Norman  lords,  tlie  chief  was 
blended  with  the  feudal  baron,  the  result  seems  to  have  been  a 
mixture  of  the  evils  of  both  systems.  Tlie  earl-chieftain 
became  the  leader  of  a  band  of  lawless  and  insolent  mercenaries 
or  gallowglass,  who  wore  cpiartered,  under  the  name  of  Coyne 


294  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

and  Livery  and  other  titles  of  extortion,  on  the  hapless  people. 
The  historic  thread,  if  slight,  is  not  invisible  which  connects 
these  Bosses  with  the  Bosses  of  New  York. 

The  very  presence  of  royalty,  as  a  power  superior  to  all  these 
anarchies,  did  good.  The  sojourn  of  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence, 
son  of  Edward  III.,  produced  a  momentary  reformation. 
"Because,"  says  Sir  John  Davis,  "the  people  of  this  land, 
both  English  and  Irish,  out  of  a  natural  pride,  did  ever  love 
and  desire  to  be  governed  by  great  persons."  If  British  mon- 
archs  could  only  have  seen  this  and  done  their  duty ! 

Bad  was  only  made  worse  when  Ireland  was  invaded  by 
Edward  Bruce,  brother  of  the  Norman  adventurer  who  had 
won  for  himself  the  throne  of  Scotland.  The  campaign  was 
like  those  of  the  Bruces  and  Wallace  in  their  own  lands,  one 
of  merciless  destruction.  The  death  blow  was  dealt  to  the 
ambition  of  Edward  Bruce  by  the  generalship  of  John  de 
Bermingham,  which  turned  the  wavering  scale  in  favour  of 
English  connection.  But  Bruce,  though  he  was  called  in  by 
the  Irish  chiefs,  seems  to  have  experienced  the  fickleness  of 
Irish  alliances.  The  Irish  Annals  of  Clonmacnoise  declare 
that  he  was  slain  "  to  the  great  joy  and  comfort  of  the  whole 
kingdom  in  general,  for  there  was  not  a  better  deed,  that 
redounded  more  to  the  good  of  the  kingdom  since  the  creation 
of  the  world,  and  since  the  banishment  of  the  Fine  Fomores 
out  of  this  land,  done  in  Ireland,  than  the  killing  of  Edward 
Bruce ;  for  there  reigned  scarcity  of  victuals,  breach  of  prom- 
ises, ill  performance  of  covenants,  and  the  loss  of  men  and 
women,  throughout  the  whole  Kingdom,  for  the  space  of  three 
years  and  a  half  that  he  bore  sway;  insomuch  that  men  did 
commonly  eat  one  another,  for  want  of  sustenance,  during 
his  time."  ^ 

Nothing  is  more  cruel  or  more  hideous  than  a  protracted 
struggle  of  the  half-civilised  with  the  savage.  A  native  was 
to  the  Englishman  as  a  wolf,  and  the  native  skene  spared  no 
Englishman.     Nothing  could  prosper.     In  the  little  English 

1  Quoted  by  A.  G.  Richey,  LL.D.,  in  his  Short  History  of  the  Irish 
People,  pp.  196,  197.     Edited  by  U.  U.  Kane,  LL.D. 


THE    IRISH   QUESTION.  *         295 

sea-board  towns,  petty  common wealtlis  in  themselves,  there  was 
order  and  some  commerce.  Galway  preserves  in  her  architect- 
ure and  her  legends  the  picturesque  and  romantic  traces  of 
her  trade  with  Spain.  Elsewhere  was  nothing  but  turbulence 
and  havoc.  A  Parliament  there  was  in  the  Pale,  but  it  was  a 
scarecrow.  Judges  there  were  in  the  Pale,  after  the  English 
model,  but  they  had  little  power  to  uphold  law.  The  Church 
was  feeble,  coarse,  and  almost  worthless  as  an  instrument  of 
civilisation.  What  there  was  of  it  was  rather  monastic  than 
parochial,  the  monastery  being  a  fortalice,  and,  in  a  general 
reign  of  crime,  probably  drawing  endowment  from  remorse. 
Only  the  Friars  were  zealous  in  preaching.  The  Church  seems 
not  to  have  acted  as  a  united  body,  to  have  held  no  synods,  and 
to  have  been  intersected,  like  the  people,  by  the  race  line. 
Ecclesiastics  fought  like  laymen,  and  appear  to  have  been  as 
little  revered.  A  chieftain  pleaded  as  an  excuse  for  burning 
down  a  cathedral  that  he  had  thought  the  Archbishop  was  in 
it.  In  the  Celtic  districts  the  calendar  of  ecclesiastical  crimes, 
or  crimes  against  ecclesiastics,  given  by  the  Four  Masters 
between  1500  and  1535,  comprises  Barry  More,  killed  by  his 
cousin,  the  Archdeacon  of  Cloyne,  who  was  himself  hanged  by 
Thomas  P)arry ;  Donald  Kane,  Abbot  of  Macosquin,  hanged  by 
Donald  O'Kane,  who  was  himself  hanged;  John  Burke,  killed 
in  the  monastery  of  Jubberpatrick;  Donaghmoyne  Church,  set 
on  fire  by  M'Mahon  during  mass;  Nicholas,  parson  of  Deven- 
ish,  wrongfully  driven  away  by  the  laity;  Hugh  jMaguinness, 
Abbot  of  Newry,  killed  by  the  sons  of  Donald  Maguinness; 
the  Prior  of  Gallen,  murdered  by  Turlough  Oge  Macloughlin; 
O'Quillan,  murdered,  and  the  Church  of  Dunboe  burned,  by 
O'Kane.  1 

While  England  was  torn  and  her  government  paralysed  by 
the  Wars  of  the  Eoses,  the  Pale  was  reduced  to  a  district 
comprising  parts  of  four  counties  and  defended  by  a  ditch. 
Had  there  been  among  the  Celts  any  national  unity  or  power 
of  organisation,  here  was  their  chance  of  winning  back  their 
lands.     But  they   were   fighting   among   themselves   just   as 

1  Eichey,  p.  284. 


296  •  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

fiercely  as  they  fought  with  the  Pale.  As  Eichey  says, 
patriotism  did  not  exist;  there  was  no  sentiment  broader  than 
that  of  the  clan,  nor  was  the  rival  clan  less  an  object  of  enmity 
than  the  Englishry. 

Soon  the  chance  of  the  Celts  was  lost.  Out  of  the  wreck  of 
the  aristocracy  in  the  civil  Avar  rose  the  powerful  monarchy  of 
the  Tudors.  In  Ireland  conquest  resumed  its  march.  Henry 
VII.  brought  the  Irish  Parliament  under  the  control  of  the 
Privy  Council  by  Poyning's  Law.  Henry  VIII.  crowned  him- 
self King  of  Ireland,  instead  of  being  only  Lord  under  the 
Pope.  The  policy  first  tried  was  that  of  ruling  Ireland 
through  great  native  chiefs.  This  failing,  dominion  was 
advanced  by  arms.  Could  the  full  force  of  the  monarchy  have 
been  thrown  on  Ireland,  there  would  have  been  a  merciful  end 
of  the  struggle.  But  the  greater  part  of  that  force  was  engaged 
upon  the  Continent,  first  by  the  vanity  of  Henry  VIII. ,  or  the 
schemes  of  his  minister,  and  afterwards  by  the  dire  exigencies 
of  the  conflict  with  the  Catholic  powers.  Here,  as  elsewhere, 
the  unwise  parsimony  of  Elizabeth  starved  the  service.  In- 
stead, of  systematic  subjugation,  there  were  hostings  or  mili- 
tary raids,  and  the  soldiers,  being  unpaid,  lived  by  rajDine. 
The  conquest  was  very  slow,  and  forms  an  exceptionally  cruel 
page  even  in  the  cruel  history  of  the  conflict  between  the  half- 
civilised  and  the  savage.  As  the  Red  Indian  is  to  the  Ameri- 
can frontiersman,  so  was  the  Irishman  under  the  Tudors  to  the 
Englishman  in  Ireland.  The  gentle  Spenser,  in  speaking  of 
him,  forgets  the  language  of  humanity.  SjDenser,  like  Raleigh, 
was  one  of  a  body  of  adventurers  who  took  part  in  the  conquest 
and  Avere  paid  by  SAveeping  confiscations  of  native  land. 
Nothing  can  be  more  horrible  or  heartrending  than  the  pic- 
tures of  the  state  of  the  island  and  its  people,  draAvn  by  the 
conquerors  themselves. 

That  the  Irish  at  this  time  Avere  uncivilised  is  clear. 
Cuellar,  a  Spaniard,  who  had  been  thrown  among  them,  says : 

"  The  habit  of  those  savages  is  to  live  like  brutes  in  the  mountains, 
which  are  very  rugged  in  the  part  of  Ireland  Avhere  we  were  lost.  They 
dwell  in  thatched  cabins.     The  men  are  Avell  made,  Avith  good  features, 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  297 

and  as  active  as  deer.  They  eat  but  one  meal  and  that  late  at  night,  oat- 
cake and  butter  being  their  usual  food.  They  drink  sour  milk  because 
they  have  nothing  else,  for  they  use  no  water,  though  they  have  the  best 
in  the  world.  At  feasts  it  is  their  custom  to  eat  half-cooked  meat  without 
bread  or  salt.  Their  dress  matches  themselves  —  tight  breeches  and 
short,  loose  jackets  of  very  coarse  texture  ;  over  all  they  wear  blankets, 
and  their  hair  comes  over  their  eyes.  They  are  great  walkers,  and  stand 
much  work,  and  by  continually  fighting  they  keep  tlie  Queen's  English 
soldiers  out  of  their  country,  which  is  notliing  but  bogs  forty  miles  either 
way.  Their  great  delight  is  robbing  one  another,  so  that  no  day  i^asses 
without  fighting  ;  for  whenever  the  people  of  one  hamlet  know  that 
those  of  another  possess  cattle  or  other  goods,  they  immediately  make 
a  night  attack  and  kill  each  other.  When  the  English  garrisons  find  out 
who  has  lifted  the  most  cattle,  they  come  down  on  them,  and  they  have 
but  to  retire  to  the  mountains  with  their  wives  and  herds,  having  no 
houses  or  furniture  to  lose.  They  sleep  on  the  ground  upon  rushes  full 
of  water  and  ice.  Most  of  the  women  are  very  pretty  but  badly  got  up, 
for  they  wear  but  a  shift  and  a  mantle,  and  a  great  linen  cloth  on  the 
head  rolled  over  the  brow.  They  are  great  workers  and  housewives  in 
their  way.  These  people  call  themselves  Christians  and  say  mass.  They 
follow  the  rule  of  the  Roman  Church,  but  most  of  their  churches,  mon- 
asteries, and  hermitages  are  dismantled  by  the  English  soldiers  and  by 
their  local  partisans,  who  are  as  bad  as  themselves.  In  short,  there  is  no 
order  nor  justice  in  the  country,  and  every  one  does  that  which  is  right 
in  his  own  eyes.  The  savages  are  well  affected  to  us  Spaniards,  because 
they  realise  that  we  are  attacking  the  heretics  and  are  their  great  ene- 
mies. If  it  was  not  for  those  natives  who  kept  us  as  if  belonging  to 
themselves,  not  one  of  our  peoj^le  would  have  escaped.  We  owe  them  a 
good  turn  for  that,  though  they  were  first  to  rob  and  strip  us  when 
we  were  cast  on  shore,  from  whom  and  from  the  three  ships  which  con- 
tained so  many  men  of  importance  those  savages  reaped  a  rich  harvest 
of  money  and  jewels."  i 

The  Lord  Deputy  Sidney  wrote  in  1567  of  the  people  of 
Munster  and  Connaught : 

"Surely,  there  was  never  people  that  lived  in  more  misery  than  they 
do,  nor  as  it  should  seem  of  worse  minds,  for  matrimony  among  them  is 
no  more  regarded  in  effect  than  conjunction  between  unreasonable  beasts. 
Finally,  I  cannot  find  that  they  make  any  conscience  of  sin,  and  I  doubt 
whether  they  christen  tlieir  cliildren   or   no  ;    for  neither   find    I   place 

1  Duro's  Armada  Invencihle,  Vol.  IT.,  pp.  358-3G0.  Quoted  by  Mr. 
Richard  Bagwell  in  his  Ireland  uiid<-r  the  7'itdors,  Vol.  III.,  pp.  185,  18G. 


298  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

where  it  should  be  done,  nor  any  person  able  to  instruct  them  in  the  rules 
of  a  Christian  ;  or  if  they  were  taught,  I  see  no  grace  in  them  to  follow 
it ;  and  when  they  die,  I  cannot  see  they  make  any  account  of  the  world 
to  come."  ^ 

Sidney  may  have  been  an  adverse  witness,  but  he  was  a  man 
of  high  character,  and  in  describing  that  which  was  before  his 
eyes  we  can  believe  that  he  spoke  the  truth. 

The  wars  of  the  Irish  chiefs  among  themselves  did  not  cease 
and  were  hardly  less  cruel  than  that  waged  upon  the  natives 
by  the  invaders.  "It  is  but  fair,"  says  the  learned  and 
impartial  Eicliey,  "to  judge  the  Celtic  tribes  by  their  own 
historians,  not  by  the  reports  of  English  statesmen  concerning 
them.  The  Annals  of  the  Four  Masters  are  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  Irish  spirit  of  this  period.  Although  detailed  as  to 
the  annals  of  the  Ulster  and  Connaught  clans,  they  pass  by 
without  notice  many  of  the  transactions  of  Leinster  and 
Munster,  and  the  events  they  record  do  not  comprise  the  entire 
history  of  the  period;  yet  the  analysis  of  the  annals  from  1500 
to  1534  gives  the  following  results:  Battles,  plunderings,  etc., 
exclusive  of  those  in  which  the  English  government  was 
engaged,  116 ;  Irish  gentlemen  of  family  killed  in  battle,  102 ; 
murdered,  168,  —  many  of  them  with  circumstances  of  great 
atrocity;  and  during  this  period,  on  the  other  hand,  there  i§  no 
allusion  to  the  enactment  of  any  law,  the  judicial  decision  of 
any  controversy,  the  founding  of  any  town,  monastery,  or 
church;  and  all  this  is  recorded  by  the  annalist  without  the 
slightest  expression  of  regret  or  astonishment,  and  as  if  such 
were  the  ordinary  course  of  life  in  a  Christian  nation."^ 

Another  and  a  terrible  element  of  evil  had  now  come  in. 
To  the  enmity  of  race  that  of  religion  had  been  added.  The 
history  of  Ireland  must  henceforth  be  read  not  by  itself  but  in 
connection  with  the  great  European  struggle  between  Catholi- 
cism and  Protestantism,  in  which  to  its  ruin  the  island  was 
involved.  England  and  the  Pale  had  become  Protestant,  at 
least  had  revolted  from  the  Pope.  This  Avas  enough  to  make 
the  native  Irishman  more  Papal  than  before.     Moreover,  the 

1  Quoted  by  Mr.  Bagwell,  II.,  113.  2  pp.  247,  248. 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  299 

form  in  wliich  the  new  faith  was  presented  to  the  Irish  was 
most  unhappy.  Anglicanism,  sober,  decorous,  and  genteel,  has 
never  suited  the  hot  and  enthusiastic  Celt.  The  dissolution 
of  the  monasteries  bore  hard  on  Ireland,  where  the  Church  was 
eminently  monastic;  so  did  iconoclasm,  the  images  and  relics 
being  dear  to  the  Irish  heart.  Disaffected  Ireland  presented 
itself  to  the  Catholic  powers  as  the  point  for  a  diversion 
against  England.  Spanish  and  Italian  troops  landed,  and  the 
tragedy  of  Smerwick,  where  a  body  of  Italians  were  put  to  the 
sword  by  the  Lord  Deputy  G-rey  after  their  surrender,  might 
be  compared  to  the  atrocities  perpetrated  by  the  Eoman 
Catholic  soldiery  of  Alva  and  Parma,  or  afterwards  by  that  of 
Tilly.  The  alliance  did  not  prevent  the  savage  Irish  from 
stripping  and  murdering  the  crews  of  the  Armada  cast  upon 
their  coast.  But  Catholic  Ireland  had  become  the  feeble 
satellite  of  the  Catholic  powers,  of  whose  acts  she  was  deemed 
the  accomplice,  and  another  vial  of  Avrath  was  thus  poured  out. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  James  I.  the  conquest  had 
been  completed  after  a  fashion ;  the  last  great  chief  had  been 
dispossessed;  the  last  tribe  had  been  broken  up;  Ireland  had 
been  carved  into  English  shires;  English  institutions  and 
English  law,  the  land-laAV  of  England  among  the  rest,  ostensibly 
prevailed.  James  I.  was  weak,  but  he  was  cultured  and  he 
had  Bacon  at  his  ear.  He  tried  to  endow  Ireland  with  English 
civilisation.  He  called  a  Parliament  for  all  Ireland.  When 
it  met  there  was  a  division  on  the  Speakership.  While  the 
majority  was  out,  the  minority  seated  its  man  in  the  chair. 
The  majority,  when  it  returned,  seated  its  man  in  the  other 
man's  lap.  Under  James,  however,  was  founded  the  Scotch 
colony  in  the  North  of  Ireland,  the  beginning  of  Ulster,  the 
hope  of  industry,  commerce,  and  civilisation. 

It  seems  pretty  clear  that  for  the  people  the  change  from 
tlie  tribal  to  tlie  manorial  system  in  itself  would  have  been  a 
blessing.  Whatever  the  fancy  about  clan  brotherhood  might 
be,  the  fact,  according  to  the  best  authority,  appears  to  have 
been  that  the  humble  clansman  was  more  degraded,  more 
trampled  on,  more  plundered  by  the  coshering  chief,  with  his 


300  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

brigand  tail  of  gallowglass,  than  ever  was  tenant  or  peasant 
under  the  lord  of  a  manor.  The  owners  and  lenders  of  cattle, 
which  constituted  Avealth  and  was  the  indispensable  means  of 
livelihood  in  a  grass  country,  seem  to  have  been  not  less 
tyrannical  than  are  owners  of  land.  The  law  might  not  be 
rational  or  suitable ;  but  the  people  were  brought,  at  all  events, 
under  the  domain  of  law,  with  the  hope  that  the  code  would 
become  rational  and  be  administered  with  justice.  Unhappily, 
the  lord  of  the  manor  was  a  stranger  by  race  and  by  religion, 
while  to  the  chief  there  had  been  an  hereditary  tie  which  had 
partly  reconciled  his  clansmen  to  his  oppression.  The  land, 
confiscated  by  James  I.  as  the  property  of  the  rebel  chiefs, 
was,  in  theory  at  least,  the  property  not  of  the  chief  but  of  the 
tribe,  though  the  chief  being  a  local  despot,  this  may  have 
been  a  distinction  rather  than  a  difference.  How  deep  the 
sense  of  the  wrong  thus  done  sank  into  the  heart  of  the  people, 
and  how  far  the  recollection  has  lived  and  helped  to  sustain 
agrarian  war,  are  questions  about  which  authorities  are  not 
agreed.  The  sequel  proves  clearly  enough  that  the  Celts 
bitterly  resented  the  transfer  of  the  land  to  the  stranger. 

Nothing  can  keep  the  peace  between  hostile  races  on  the 
same  soil  but  an  authority  superior  to  them  both  and  wielded 
by  an  impartial  hand.  Strafford  was  born  to  rule,  and  his 
despotism  in  Ireland  would  have  been  beneficent  had  he  not 
been  under  the  necessity  of  providing  a  force  to  sujDport 
absolutist  and  High  Church  reaction  in  England.  This  drove 
him  into  SAveeping  confiscations  of  land  under  form  of  law. 
At  the  same  time,  by  the  policy  which  made  Ireland  a  lever 
of  Stuart  conspiracy  against  English  liberty  and  religion,  yet 
another  vial  of  wrath  was  poured  out. 

By  the  quarrel  between  Charles  and  the  Parliament  an 
opportunity  was  once  more  given  to  the  Celts.  They  embraced 
it  by  either  murdering  outright,  or  casting  out  to  perish  of 
destiti"'tion  and  nakedness  all  the  Protestants  on  whom  they 
could  lay  hands.  Dublin  narrowly  escaped.  To  doubt  that 
there  was  a  massacre  seems  absurd,  whether  the  massacre  was 
premeditated  or  not,  and  however  great  the  exaggerations  may 


THE    lUlSH   QUESTION.  801 

have  been.  Could  Clarendon,  with  the  best  possible  means  of 
information  and  no  tendency  to  magnify  Puritan  wrongs,  have 
said  that  forty  or  fifty  thousand  Protestants  had  been  killed  if 
there  had  been  no  killing  at  all?  There  followed  a  general 
insurrection  headed  by  ecclesiastics,  with  the  Jesuit  in  the 
background,  and  a  revolutionary  government  Avas  formed  at 
Kilkenny  under  the  presidency  of  a  Papal  Envoy.  The 
English  force  was  not  only  small,  but  divided  against  itself, 
and  might  have  been  easily  overcome.  But  the  Celts  showed 
their  usual  lack  of  the  powers  of  organisation  and  self- 
government.  The  party  whose  chief  aim  was  the  recovery  of 
the  land  quarrelled  with  the  party  whose  chief  aim  was  the 
restoration  of  the  Church.  No  one  worthy  to  command 
appeared.  There  ensued  a  murderous,  aimless,  and  bootless 
civil  war,  in  which  fearful  atrocities  Avere  committed  on  both 
sides,  and  quarter  was  given  on  neither.  None  were  more 
ruthless  than  the  settlers  from  Scotland,  The  Irish  popula- 
tion of  Island  Magee,  though  not  involved  in  the  rebellion, 
Avas  massacred,  man,  woman,  and  child,  by  the  Scotch  garrison 
of  Carrickfergus.  According  to  the  Protestant  historian,  Bor- 
lase,  Sir  W.  Cole's  regiment  performed  the  exploit  of  starving, 
of  the  vulgar  sort  Avhose  goods  Avere  seized  on  by  it,  seven 
thousand.  One  redeeming  incident  alone  there  was.  The 
evangelical  virtues  of  the  Protestant  Bishop  Bedell  protected 
him  and  those  who  took  refuge  with  him  from  the  rage  of  the 
Catholics.  He  was  made  a  prisoner,  but  Avas  treated  Avith 
kindness  by  his  captors,  and  Avhen  he  died  the  Irish  army 
buried  him  Avith  military  honours,  and  joined  over  his  grave 
in  the  prayer  that  the  last  of  the  English  might  rest  in  peace. 
At  last  on  the  Avings  of  victory  came  CroniAvell,  and  Avith  one 
terrible  stroke  made  peace.  The  great  man  himself  deplored 
the  necessity,  in  Avhicli  some  of  his  worshippers  now  exult. 
Quarter  in  those  ages  Avas  not  given  to  a  garrison  Avhich  after 
summons  had  stood  a  storm.  The  Catholic  and  Imperial 
armi(\s  put  to  the  SAVord  not  only  the  garrison  but  the  inhabi- 
tants of  captured  cities.  The  Irish  Catholics  had  given  no 
quarter,     llinuocini,  the  Papal  Envoy,  reports  Avith  exultation 


302  QUESTIONS. OF   THE   DAY. 

that  after  a  victory  no  prisoners  were  taken;  "  every  one,"  says 
the  holy  man,  "slaughtered  his  adversary,  and  Sir  Phelim 
O'Neill,  who  bore  himself  most  bravely,  when  asked  by  the 
colonels  for  a  list  of  his  prisoners,  swore  that  his  regiment  had 
not  one,  as  he  had  ordered  his  men  to  kill  them  all  without 
distinction.''  ^ 

With  the  ruthlessness  common  to  all  parties  in  those  days, 
Cromwell  deported  or  sent  into  exile  a  good  deal  of  the  loose 
savagery  which  the  civil  war  had  left  behind.  That  he  meant 
to  extirpate  the  Irish  people  is  a  fiction,  but  he  did  mean  to 
extirpate  Irish  barbarism,  and  to  plant  law,  order,  and  indus- 
try in  its  room.  Confiscation  of  land  there  was  on  a  terrible 
scale  to  satisfy  the  claims  of  the  soldiers,  who  had  been  paid 
in  land-scrip.  But  this  struck  the  Catholic  proprietors,  who 
had  played  their  game  and  lost,  not  the  peasantry,  who,  if  they 
chose  to  work,  would  probably  be  under  better,  certainly  under 
thriftier,  masters.  Cromwell  proclaimed  to  the  Catholics 
liberty  of  private  conscience.  The  Mass  in  those  days  he 
could  not  have  tolerated  if  he  would,  and  when  we  consider 
what  the  Mass  is,  what  it  has  done,  and  how  soon  the  common 
people  v/ould  have  been  weaned  from  it,  we  may  be  rather 
disposed  to  wink  at  this  departure  from  religious  liberty. 
The  Protector  treated  Ireland  as  "a  clean  paper,"  to  use  his 
own  expression,  for  the  introduction  of  legal  reforms  for  which 
the  professional  "-sons  of  Zeruiah  "  were  too  strong  in  England. 
But  the  greatest  of  all  the  benefits  conferred  by  him  alike  on 
Ireland  and  Great  Britain  was  the  Union,  which  he  was  able 
to  accomplish  without  buying  anybody,  by  the  simple  exercise 
of  a  might  which  in  this  case  assuredly  was  right.  It  is 
almost  heartrending  to  think  that  the  Irish  Question  was 
settled  in  the  right  way  nearly  two  centuries  and  a  half  ago. 

Of  tlie  acts  of  the  Kestoration  the  worst  was  tlie  dissolution 
of  the  Union.  The  Protestant  proprietary  in  Ireland  had 
interest  enough  partly  to  hold  its  ground.  P>ut  the  stioiig  arm 
of  beneficent  and  civilising  power  was  gone,  and  the  hel}:]cf  s 
country  and  its  people  were  left  to  their  own  courses  again. 

1  The  Embassy  in  Inland,  p.  175,  Aiiuiu  IIuLLuu's  trauslatiou. 


THE   IRISH  QUESTION.  303 

Another  consequence  of  the  Restoration,  big  with  evil,  was 
the  re-establishment  of  the  Anglican  State  Church  in  Ireland. 

James  II.  renewed  the  attempt  of  his  father  against  English 
liberty  and  religion,  and  in  a  form  more  dangerous  and  hateful 
than  that  in  which  it  had  been  made  by  his  father,  a  form 
which  threatened  with  extinction  the  political  and  spiritual 
life  of  the  nation.  Once  more  Ireland  had  the  misfortune  to 
be  used  as  the  lever  of  the  Stuart  policy.  England  saw  with 
disgust  and  dismay  regiments  of  Irish  Papists  moving  along 
her  highways.  Ireland  was  put  into  the  hands  of  Tyrconnel, 
who,  though  a  reckless  ruffian,  was  accepted  as  the  leader  of 
the  Catholic  Celts  at  that  time.  Under  this  man's  auspices  a 
Celtic  and  Catholic  Parliament  passed  an  Act  of  Attainder 
proscribing  at  one  swoop,  without  regard  to  age  or  sex,  the 
whole  Protestant  proprietary  of  Ireland.  It  is  Tyrconnel's 
Parliament,  a  Celtic  and  Catholic  Parliament,  not  Grattan's 
Parliament,  a  Parliament  of  Protestant  gentry,  which  it  is  now 
proposed  to  revive. 

Overwhelmingly  outnumbered  and  driven  to  bay  behind  the 
mouldering  walls  of  Derry,  the  stronger  race  showed  in 
extremity  a  force  which  in  extremity  it  may  show  again. 
The  result,  as  all  know,  was  the  victory  of  that  race  and  the 
miserable  subjection  of  the  Celt.  The  most  warlike  of  the 
Celtic  youth  went,  and  for  a  century  afterwards  continued  to 
go,  as  food  for  powder  and  at  the  same  time  as  the  soldiery  of 
reactionary  despotism,  into  the  service  of  the  Catholic  kings. 
In  that  service  Irish  soldiers  of  fortune  won  distinction, 
though  Brown  and  Wall  are  not  Celtic  names. 

Then  followed  the  era  of  the  penal  code,  cruel  and  liateful. 
Mark,  however,  that  the  penal  code  was  not  intended,  like  the 
religious  codes  of  Roman  Catholic  countries  and  the  Inquisi- 
tion, to  rack  conscience  and  compel  apostasy,  but  to  keep  the 
Celts  disarmed,  socially  and  politically  as  well  as  physically, 
and  prevent  them  from  repeating,  as,  if  the  power  had  reverted 
to  their  hands,  they  would  have  repeated,  the  acts  of  Tyrcon- 
nel's  Parliament.  Remember  too  what  was  being  done  in 
countries  where  Roman  Catholicism  reigned.     Remember  how 


304  QUESTIONS   OF  THE   DAY. 

in  every  Roman  Catholic  kingdom  Protestantism  was  treated 
as  treason;  liow  Louis  XIV.  was  banisliing  the  Huguenots, 
butchering  them,  sending  their  ministers  to  the  galleys;  how 
the  autos  da  fe  were  going  on  in  Spain;  how  the  Jesuit  was 
still  busy  everywhere  with  his  conspiracy  for  the  extirpation 
of  Protestantism  by  the  Catholic  sword.  Forty  years  after 
this  the  Roman  Catholic  Prince  Bishop  of  Salzburg  expelled 
the  whole  Protestant  population  from  his  dominions.  Irish 
history  in  these  times,  to  be  fairly  read,  must  be  read,  not  by 
itself,  but  in  connection  with  that  of  the  great  conflict  between 
Protestantism  and  Roman  Catholicism  over  all  Europe.  Not 
a  few  of  the  exiled  Huguenots  settled  in  Ireland,  ocular 
warnings  of  the  fate  which  the  Protestants  might  expect  if 
their  enemy  were  unchained.  When  danger  passed  away  and 
cruel  fear  subsided,  the  penal  code  was  practically  relaxed, 
the  growing  spirit  of  religious  indifference  and  free-thinking 
embodied  in  Chesterfield's  Lord-Lieutenancy  helping  the  pro- 
cess, and  before  the  autos  da  fe  had  come  to  an  end  the  Roman 
Catholics  in  Ireland,  though  politically  unenfranchised,  as  a 
Church  had  become  practically  free;  free,  at  least,  so  far  as  a 
Church  could  be  while  another  Church,  and  that  of  the 
minority,  was  established  by  the  State. 

To  the  High  Church  bishops  of  the  Anglican  establishment, 
the  Roman  Catholics  were  less  the  objects  of  persecuting  anti- 
pathy than  the  Presbyterians  in  the  North  of  Ireland,  in  whom 
lay  the  hope  of  industry,  commerce,  and  civilisation  for  the 
rest  of  the  island.  Of  these,  the  bishops  succeeded  in  harrying 
many  out  of  the  country,  and  sending  them  to  fight,  with 
hearts  full  of  the  bitterness  of  wrong,  against  Great  Britain  in 
the  American  Colonies.  The  Anglican  Church  itself  did  noth- 
ing, and  could  do  nothing,  either  for  religion  or  for  civilisation. 
Its  system  was  fatally  unsuited  to  the  people.  It  never  made 
converts,  where  thorough-going  and  fervent  Protestantism,  if 
it  had  only  had  a  free  course,  might  have  made  many.  In 
Francis  Newman's  "Phases  of  Faith,"  there  is  a  remarkable 
account  of  the  impression  which  a  Protestant  preacher  of  that 
type  did  make.     The  Anglican  Church  showed  all  the  worst 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  305 

marks  of  an  establishment.  Not  only  did  it  not  advance  or 
propagate;  it  sank  into  miserable  lethargy,  its  churches  were 
left  unrepaired,  sinecurism  and  pluralism  abounded  in  it, 
half  a  dozen  of  its  parishes  were  clubbed  to  make  an  income 
for  one  man  ;  to  collect  tithe  was  its  chief  care  ;  Irish 
parsons  lived  in  English  cities  on  pretence  that  there  was  no 
parsonage  in  their  parishes,  spending  the  money  which  the 
tithe-proctor  wrung  for  them  from  a  starving  peasantry.  In 
addition  to  the  usual  evils  of  establishment,  the  State  Church 
of  Ireland  had  those  of  a  Church  alien  to  the  people;  it  had 
also  those  of  a  political  garrison.  Its  heads  were  political 
intriguers,  some  of  them,  such  as  Stone,  of  the  worst  class. 
Swift  could  say  that  the  British  Government  appointed  pious 
and  learned  men  to  the  Irish  bishoprics,  but  they  were  all 
waylaid  on  Hounslow  Heath  by  highwaymen,  who  robbed  them 
of  their  letters  patent  and  stole  into  their  sees. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  Ireland  desired 
union.  Union  was  withheld.  The  refusal  was,  saving  the 
dissolution  of  Cromwell's  united  Commonwealth,  the  most 
calamitous  blunder  that  British  statesmanship  ever  made.  If 
the  sons  could  ever  deserve  to  suffer  for  the  sins  of  the  fathers, 
the  England  of  our  generation  would  deserve  to  suffer  for  this 
misdeed.  Commercial  jealousy  was,  in  all  jirobability,  the 
main  cause.  Commerce  has  served  civilisation  well;  but  there 
is  also  a  heavy  account  against  her  for  inhuman  cupidity, 
monopoly,  and  commercial  war.  In  Ireland's  expression  of 
desire  for  union  the  voice  of  her  true  interest  had  been  heard. 

Instead  of  union,  to  Poyning's  Law,  subjecting  the  legisla- 
tion of  the  Irish  Parliament  to  the  control  of  the  Privy  Coun- 
cil, was  added  the  Act  of  George  I.  declaring  that  the  British 
Parliament  had  power  to  legislate  for  Ireland.  Tlius  Ireland 
was  placed  in  the  position  of  a  dependency  with  a  vassal 
Parliament;  that  arrangement  manifestly  pregnant  with  jeal- 
ousy, discord,  and  revolt,  to  which,  after  decisive  experience 
of  its  results,  the  sagacity  of  British  statesmen  now  desires  to 
return.  Tlie  fetters  imposed  on  Irish  trade,  particularly  on 
the  trade  in  wool,  the  Irisli  staple,  for  the  supposed  beneiit  of 


306  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

the  English  trader,  bespoke  the  evil  spirit  which  was  universal 
in  those  days,  and  were  counterparts  of  those  wliich  Avere  laid 
on  the  trade  of  the  American  Colonies,  and,  fully  as  much  as 
any  stamp  or  tea  tax,  were  the  cause  of  the  American  revolt. 
Their  iniquitous  pursuer,  together  with  the  friction  inevitably 
caused  by  the  political  arrangement,  the  abuses  of  the  Irish 
pension  list,  and  the  aspirations  excited  by  the  possession  of  a 
Parliament  gave  birth,  among  the  dominant  race  at  least,  to  a 
sort  of  bastard  nationality,  which  began  to  assume  the  form  of 
a  struggle  for  independence.  A  bastard  nationality  only  it 
was,  since  the  mass  of  the  people  remained  political  and  social 
serfs.  Molyneux  sounded  the  first  note  in  a  treatise  on  the 
power  of  the  British  Parliament  to  bind  Ireland.  Swift, 
though  he  hated  and  despised  the  country  to  which  his  char- 
acter had  banished  him,  out  of  mere  revenge  and  mischief, 
played,  and  of  course  played  venomously,  a  i^atriot's  part. 

The  manorial  system  has  not  a  little  to  say  for  itself,  both 
economically  and  socially,  so  long  as  the  landlord  pays  for 
improvements,  does  his  duty,  resides  on  the  estate,  and  main- 
tains kindly  relations  with  his  people.  But  of  the  Irish  land- 
lords many  were  absentees,  rack-renting  their  tenants  through 
merciless  middlemen.  Those  who  were  resident  were  com- 
monly aliens  in  religion,  and  as  a  class  improvident  and 
worthless,  though  some  of  them,  especially  those  of  old  fami- 
lies, were  popular  with  the  peasantry,  not  the  less  on  account 
of  the  reckless  profusion  which  often  brought  them  to  ruin. 
More  oppressive  and  insolent  than  the  great  landlord  was  the 
squireen.  The  landlord  rack-rented  and  yet  did  not  provide 
improvements.  Hence  agrarian  conspiracy  under  the  name  of 
Whiteboyism,  and  outrage  which  assumed  forms  only  too 
familiar  to  the  cruelly  excitable  Celt,  such  as  carding,  hoiigh- 
ing,  and  mutilation  not  only  of  men  but  of  cattle.  It  was,  in 
fact,  a  desperate  social  war  for  the  land,  in  which  on  both 
sides  ferocity  reached  an  almost  heroic  pitch.  A  party  of 
Whiteboys  entered  a  house  in  which  were  a  man,  his  wife,  and 
their  daughter,  a  little  girl.  The  three  were  all  together  in 
the  same  room.     The  ruffians  rushed  into  the  room,  dragged 


.     THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  307 

the  man  out  of  the  house,  and  there  proceeded  to  murder  him. 
In  the  room  where  the  woman  and  the  girl  remained,  there  was 
a  closet  with  a  hole  in  its  door,  through  which  a  person  placed 
inside  could  see  into  the  room.  The  woman  concealed  the 
little  girl  in  this  closet,  and  said  to  her,  "Now,  child,  they 
are  murdering  your  father  downstairs,  and  when  they  have 
murdered  him,  they  will  come  up  here  and  murder  me.  Take 
care  that  while  they  are  doing  it  you  look  well  at  them,  and 
mind  yoa  swear  to  them  when  you  see  them  in  the  court.  I 
will  throw  turf  on  the  fire  the  last  thing  to  give  you  light,  and 
struggle  hard  that  you  may  have  time  to  take  a  good  view." 
The  little  girl  looked  on  through  the  hole  in  the  closet  door 
wliile  her  mother  was  being  murdered.  She  marked  the  mur- 
derers well.  She  swore  to  them  when  she  saw  them  in  a  court 
of  justice;  and  they  were  convicted  on  her  evidence. 

The  people  multiplied  heedlessly,  their  Church  ^practically 
encouraging  them,  as  it  everywhere  does,  in  improvidence. 
As  the  land  generally  would  not  well  bear  grain,  even  if  the 
holdings  had  been  large  enough,  the  only  food  by  which  the 
swarms  could  be  maintained  was  the  potato,  precarious  from 
its  liability  to  disease,  as  well  as  barbarous,  to  force  which 
the  soil  was  recklessly  exhausted  by  burning.  The  result  was 
a  peasantry  living  sometimes  on  potato  mixed  with  seaweed, 
and  a  reign  of  misery  which  Swift  grimly  characterised  by 
proposing  in  a  horrible  squib  that  babies  should  be  used 
as  food. 

Praise  and  thanks  are  due  to  the  Catholic  priesthood  for 
ha.ving  been  tlie  comfort  and  the  guide  of  the  Irish  peasant  in 
his  darkest  liour.  On  the  other  hand,  the  influence  of  an 
anti-economical  and  obscurantist  Church  must  be  the  same 
everywhere,  the  same  in  Ireland  as  in  Spain,  Portugal,  South- 
ern Italy,  Brittany,  and  the  Valais.  Had  Ireland  been  left 
wholly  in  the  hands  of  a  Spanish  or  Calabrian  priesthood,  what 
would  liave  been  its  state  now?  The  history  of  Roman  Catholic 
society  affords  us  no  reason  for  believing  that  the  priest  would 
have  bearded  the  landlord  in  tlie  interest  of  the  peasant.  It 
affords  all  possible  reason  for  believing  that  he  would  have 


308  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

complacently  shared  the  fruits  of  rack-rent.  This,  at  least,  is 
what  he  did  in  Spain,  in  Italy,  and  in  France  down  to  the  time 
of  the  Revolution.  The  history  of  Ireland  as  it  has  been  is 
dark  enough.  What  it  might  have  been  without  British  con- 
nection Ave  cannot  tell.  That  it  would  have  been  bright  and 
happy,  there  is  nothing  either  in  the  Irish  horoscope  at  the 
time  of  the  Norman  conquest  or  in  any  subsequent  manifesta- 
tions to  lead  us  to  assume. 

When  Great  Britain  was  worsted  in  the  struggle  with  the 
American  Colonies,  and  had  France,  Spain,  and  Holland,  as 
well  as  the  Colonists,  at  her  throat,  the  Irish  Protestant 
gentry,  who  after  all  depended  for  their  ascendancy  and  almost 
for  their  existence  as  an  order  on  their  connection  with  her, 
took  advantage,  without  any  false  chivalry,  of  her  distress  to 
extort  from  her  Parliamentary  independence.  This  she  was 
fain  to  concede ;  though,  had  she  not  been  unnerved  by  faction 
as  well  as  depressed  by  defeat,  a  few  regiments  of  regular 
troops  would  probably  have  sufficed  to  quell  the  Volunteers. 
Grattan,  in  rhetorical  ecstasy,  on  his  knees  adored  the  newly- 
risen  nation  in  presence  of  a  Parliament  which  traced  its 
pedigree  to  the  Parliament  of  the  Pale,  and  was  holding  in 
social  and  political  bondage  three-fourths  of  the  Irish  people. 

Left  to  themselves,  the  two  Parliaments  would  have  speedily 
flown  asunder.  They  did,  in  fact,  fly  asunder  on  the  question 
of  the  Regency,  and  a  rupture  of  the  Kingdom  was  averted 
only  by  the  recovery  of  George  III.  Generally  they  Avere  held 
together  in  uneasy  wedlock  by  Castle  patronage,  including  the 
rich  bishoprics  and  deaneries,  and  by  sheer  corruption,  to- 
gether with  a  large  number  of  nomination  boroughs  in  the  gift 
of  the  Crown.  But  there  was  a  still  stronger  though  latent 
bond.  Grattan's  Parliament  of  Protestant  proprietors  knew, 
amidst  all  its  patriotic  declamation  against  British  tyranny, 
that  Avith  British  connection  its  own  life  Avas  bound  up.  Had 
it  broken  Avith  England,  Tyrconnel's  Parliament  Avould  have 
taken  its  place.  It  never  dared  to  grant  Catholic  Emancipa- 
tion or  Parliamentary  reform.  About  its  last  measure  Avas  an 
Act  of  Indemnity  for  the  illegal  infliction  of  torture  by  the 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  309 

lasli  on  suspected  Catholics.  It  must  always  have  remained 
what  it  was,  a  scion  of  the  Parliament  of  the  Pale.  Eloquent 
speakers  it  had.  Its  corruption,  its  orgies,  its  duelling,  are 
facts  not  less  certain.  The  evidence  of  Sir  Jonah  Barrington 
is  enough. 

Pitt,  strong  in  his  great  majority,  and  lifted  above  com- 
mercial prejudices  by  the  teaching  of  Adam  Smith,  projected 
a  liberal  measure  of  commercial  union  for  Ireland.  He  was 
baffled  as  much  by  Irish  jealousy  of  anything  that  came  from 
England  as  by  British  prejudice  or  faction.  He  designed  for 
Ireland  political  reform,  the  abolition  of  corruption  and  abuses, 
and  a  measure  of  justice  to  the  Catholics.  As  a  harbinger  of 
that  policy,  Fitzwilliam  was  sent  to  Ireland.  But  Fitzwillam 
was  headlong  where  he  ought  to  have  been  most  cautious, 
prematurely  proclaimed  his  mission,  and  began  to  dismiss 
powerful  friends  of  government.  Pitt  was  at  the  head  of  a 
coalition  ministry,  of  which  one  wing  was  strongly  Tory. 
The  consequence  was  a  break-down  of  Pitt's  liberal  policy, 
and  at  a  moment  which  unliappily  proved  to  have  been  critical. 

Then  came  the  French  Revolution,  and  called  into  activity 
the  free-thinkmg  republicanism  which  the  intolerant  bishops 
of  the  State  Church  had  helped  by  their  vexations  to  foster  at 
Belfast.  Disturbance,  once  set  on  foot  among  the  dominant 
race,  spread,  as  it  had  done  in  the  time  of  Charles  I.,  to  the 
subject  race,  taking  the  usual  form  of  agrarian  conspiracy  and 
outrage.  The  Catholics  having  risen,  the  Protestants  turned 
on  them  as  their  immemorial  enemies,  and  there  ensued  over 
certain  districts  a  reign  of  terror  carried  on  by  the  Protestant 
yeomanry,  whose  practices  were  flogging,  pitch-capping,  picket- 
ing, and  half-hanging,  as  those  of  the  Catholics  were  shooting, 
carding,  and  houghing.  Of  the  Catholic  priesthood  a  few 
favoured  the  insurrection,  and  one  afterwards  became  the  rebel 
general;  but  most  of  them  shrank  from  anything  connected 
with  the  French  Eevolution,  and  not  on  them  rests  any  of  the 
responsibility  of  this  worse  than  civil  war.  At  this  time  they 
were  generally  educated  abroad,  and  identified  with  the  Con- 
tinental  Church   which   the    Revolution  was  threatening  to 


310  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

destroy.  Meanwhile  Wolfe  Tone,  the  only  real  leader  whom  the 
Celtic  insurrection  produced,  a  brave,  gay,  clever,  and  sincere, 
though  light-headed  and  tipsy,  man  of  action,  had  won  the  ear  of 
the  French  Revolutionary  government  and  obtained  from  it  a 
promise  of  assistance.  In  fulfilment  of  that  promise  came  an 
armament  commanded  by  Hoche,  which  was  only  prevented 
from  landing  by  weather,  and  which  had  it  landed  must  for  a 
time  have  overrun  Ireland,  though  it  would  presently  have  been 
cut  off  by  the  British  fleet.  Winds  and  waves  saved  the  King- 
dom. Napoleon,  left  supreme  by  Hoche's  death,  liked  not  the 
aspect  of  Irish  insurrection  and  refused  to  -repeat  Hoche's 
attempt.  "Ireland,"  he  said  to  the  Directory,  "has  made  a 
diversion  for  you;  what  more  do  you  want  of  it?"  To  the 
furies  of  civil  war,  however,  those  of  invasion  had  been  added. 
It  is  useless  to  recount  the  infernal  history  of  1798,  the 
passions  of  which  only  the  vilest  demagogism  would  wish,  for 
political  purposes,  to  revive.  Amidst  that  murderous  chaos 
the  one  power  of  mercy,  let  the  traducers  of  England  take  it  as 
they  willj  was  the  regular  army  of  Great  Britain.^ 

Grattan's  Parliament  and  the  system  \ipon  which  it  stood 
had  sunk,  with  social  order,  in  blood  and  flame.  It  is  most 
likely  that  Pitt  had  before  contemplated  union,  and  that  it 
was  his  deliberate  policy,  not,  as    Lord  Rosebery  says,  the 

1  "  The  respect  and  veneration  with  which  I  heard  the  names  of  Hunter, 
Skeret,  and  Stewart  .  .  .  pronounced,  and  the  liigh  encomiums  passed  on 
the  Scotch  and  English  regiments,  under  whose  protection  tlie  misguided 
partisans  of  rebellion  were  enabled  to  return  in  safety  to  their  homes, 
convinces  me  that  the  salvation  of  the  country  was  as  much  owing  to  the 
forbearance,  humanity,  and  prudence  of  the  regular  troops  as  to  their 
discipline  and  bravery.  The  moment  the  militia,  yeomanry,  and  Orange- 
men were  separated  from  the  army,  confidence  was  restored."  —  Wake- 
field's Ireland,  II.,  372.  The  answer  made  to  this  by  those  who  begrudge 
honour  to  the  British  army  is  that  Wakefield  was  not  an  official  writer, 
and  that  he  wrote  fourteen  years  after  the  event ;  as  though  most  histo- 
rians were  official,  and  a  writer  could  not  remember  an  important  and 
impressive  circumstance  for  fourteen  years.  The  troops,  of  which  Aber- 
crombie  spoke  of  as  "  only  formidable  to  their  friends,"  were  not  the 
regulars,  but  the  militia.     (See  Cornwallis's  Despatch,  Sept.  25,  1798.) 


THE   IRISH  QUESTION.  311 

counsel  of  his  despair;  though  they  foully  slander  him  who 
insinuate  that,  to  pave  the  way  for  union,  he  let  rebellion 
have  its  course.  Union  now  was  evidently  the  only  policy. 
To  take  both  races  and  religions  under  the  broad  aegis  of  the 
Imperial  Parliament  was  the  sole  chance  of  ending  a  civil 
war  of  devils  between  them,  and  of  saving  the  Aveaker  race 
from  the  vengeance  which  would  have  been  hailed  upon  it  by 
the  stronger.  Best  of  all  would  it  have  been  to  follow  the 
example  of  Cromwell,  declare  Ireland  united  to  Great  Britain, 
and  call  her  representatives  to  the  Imperial  Parliament.  On 
this  Pitt  did  not  venture.  The  alternative  was  to  compound 
with  a  powerful  oligarchy  for  the  loss  of  its  field  of  ambition 
and  patronage.  This  was  done,  and  it  was  dirty  work,  as 
Cornwallis  bitterly  complains.  But  it  would  not  have  been 
done  by  a  man  so  upright  and  honourable  as  Cornwallis,  had 
he  not  been  profoundly  convinced  of  the  necessity  and  right- 
eousness of  the  measure.  That  the  Union  was  carried  by 
bribery  has  been  conclusively  disproved  by  Dr.  Dunbar  In- 
gram,^ whose  treatises  they  only  refuse  to  read  who  do  not 
desire  to  know  the  truth.  The  money  which  has  been  mis- 
taken for  bribes  was  compensation  for  the  loss  of  nomination 
boroughs  given  under  the  authority  of  Parliament  in  accord- 
ance with  the  notions  of  that  day,  and  given  without  distinc- 
tion to  suj^porters  and  opponents  of  the  Union.  Whence,  in 
fact,  could  the  money  for  bribery  so  colossal  have  come?  Not, 
certainly,  from  Pitt's  purse  or  any  fund  under  Pitt's  per- 
sonal control;  while  if  it  came  from  the  secret  service  fund 
it  nmst  have  appeared  in  the  public  accounts  in  gross  though 
not  in  detail. 

That  the  measure  was  not  imposed  by  British  force  is  proved 
by  Cornwallis's  confidential  statement  that  in  July,  1799, 
when  the  political  struggle  was  at  its  height,  the  army  remain- 
ing in  Ireland  was  sufficient  to  preserve  peace,  but  totally 
incompetent  to  resist  foreign  invasion.  In  September,  1798, 
he   reckoned  his   effective   force  of  British  regulars  at  four 

1  Two    Chapters   of  Irish  History,  aiul  A  History  of  the  Legislative 
Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 


312  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

regiments,  comprising  in  all  eighteen  hundred  men  ;  and  his 
total  force  of  all  kinds  did  not  really  exceed  forty-five  thou- 
sand. There  was  no  rising  of  any  importance  against  the 
Union  even  in  Dublin,  which,  as  the  capital,  had  most  to  lose. 
The  leaders  of  the  Catholics  are  alleged  to  have  been  decoyed 
by  a  promise  of  Emancipation.  No  pledge  was  given  by  Pitt; 
to  what  extent  expectations  were  held  out  it  is  difficult  to 
decide.  But  there  was  a  motive  for  acquiescing  in  the  meas- 
ure, which  amidst  recondite  speculations  and  conjectures  is 
too  much  left  out  of  sight.  All  who  had  property  to  be  plun- 
dered or  throats  to  be  cut  were  likely  to  embrace  the  only 
visible  mode  of  escape  from  a  sanguinary  chaos.  That  there 
was  a  concerted  destruction  by  British  statesmen  of  their 
papers  relating  to  this  period,  to  conceal  their  infamy,  is  an 
imagination  worthy  of  those  who  seem  to  think  that  there  was 
no  honour  or  beneficence  in  British  statesmen  before  their 
own  day.^ 

Some  of  the  leading  opponents  of  the  Union,  such  as  Foster, 
Ponsonby,  and  Parnell,  ratified  the  act  when  it  was  done  by 
the  acceptance  of  large  sums  as  compensation.  Grattan  sat  in 
the  Imperial  Parliament  for  an  English  nomination  borough 
and  voted  for  a  Coercion  Bill.  Plunket  likewise  sat  in  the 
Imperial  Parliament.  He  had  said  that  he  would  resist  Union 
to  the  last  gasp  of  his  breath  and  the  last  drop  of  his  blood, 
that  he  would  swear  his  children  at  the  altar  to  eternal  resist- 
ance to  it.  Afterwards  as  a  member  of  the  United  Parlia- 
ment and  the  great  advocate  of  Catholic  Emancipation  there, 
he  said :  "  As  an  Irishman  I  opposed  that  union ;  as  an  Irish- 
man I  avow  that  I  did  so  openly  and  boldly,  nor  am  I  now 

1  The  sole  basis  for  the  statement  appears  to  be  a  passage,  misread  by 
the  eyes  of  prejudice,  in  Ross's  Preface  to  the  Cornwallis  Correspondence  ; 
the  preservation  of  which  correspondence  is  itself  a  confutation  of  the 
statement.  Ross  uses  "purposely,"  in  contrast  to  the  neglect  by  which 
he  says  some  of  the  papers  have  perished.  He  does  not  hint  at  concert, 
and,  of  the  papers  purposely  destroyed,  some  were  distroyed  at  a  late 
date  and  by  persons  not  implicated  in  the  transactions.  He  says  that  all 
facilities  were  given  to  his  investigations  both  at  the  State  Paper  Office 
and  in  Dublin  Castle. 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  313 

ashamed  of  what  I  then  did.  But  though  in  my  resistance  to 
it  I  had  been  prepared  to  go  the  length  of  any  man,  I  am  now 
equally  prepared  to  do  all  in  my  power  to  render  it  close  and 
indissoluble.  One  of  the  apprehensions  on  which  my  opposi- 
tion was  founded,  I  am  hapj)y  to  say,  has  been  disappointed 
by  the  event.  I  had  been  afraid  that  the  interest  of  Ireland, 
on  the  abolition  of  her  separate  Legislature,  would  come  to  be 
discussed  in  a  hostile  Parliament.  But  I  can  now  state  —  and 
I  wish  when  I  speak  that  I  could  be  heard  by  the  whole  of 
Ireland  —  that  during  the  time  that  I  have  sat  in  the  United 
Parliament,  I  have  found  every  question  that  related  to  the 
interests  or  security  of  that  country  entertained  with  indul- 
gence, and  treated  with  the  most  deliberate  regard."  ^ 

It  is  said  that  Pitt  ought  to  have  tested  the  sentiment  of 
the  Irish  nation  by  dissolving  the  Dublin  Parliament  and 
holding  a  general  election  on  the  issue  of  Union.  How  could 
the  sentiment  of  the  nation  be  tested  by  an  election  to  Parlia- 
ment to  which  three-fourths  of  the  nation  were  not  eligible 
and  which  was  a  Parliament  of  nomination  boroughs?  There 
was  no  Irish  assembly  or  authority  of  any  kind  competent  to 
speak  for  Ireland  as  a  nation.  The  only  authority  practically 
existing  in  the  island  was  the  British  power,  by  which  alone 
law  and  order  were  upheld. 

That  the  Union  was  politically  unfair  to  Ireland  cannot  be 
pretended.  She  has  always  had  her  fair  share  of  the  repre- 
sentation. She  has  now  twenty-three  members  more  than  her 
share,  and  thus  swells  to  thirty-four  a  Home  Rule  majority 
which  would  of  right  be  only  eleven.  For  some  years  under 
the  reign  of  the  Whigs,  her  members  held  the  balance  between 
the  parties,  and,  as  we  have  good  reason  to  know,  they  hold 
it  now. 

To  all  the  offices,  honours,  and  employments  of  the  Empire, 
the  native  of  Ireland  has  been  admitted  on  a  perfect  equality 
with  the  other  citizens  of  the  United  Kingdom.  India  has  had 
two  Irish  Viceroys ;  natives  of  Ireland  command  the  British 

1  PlunkeVs  Lifv,  II.,  104.  Quoted  by  Dr.  Dunbar  Ingram  in  his  History 
of  the  Legislative  Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  pp.  93,  94. 


314  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

armies ;  the  Indian  Civil  Service  and  the  Indian  office  at  home 
are  full  of  Irishmen. 

If  the  Irish  representation  in  the  House  of  Commons  has 
been  weak  in  character  and  has  been  disgraced  by  a  series  of 
adventurers  of  the  Sadleir  type,  this  has  not  been  due  to  any 
unfairness  in  the  terms  of  Union,  nor  is  it  now  good  reason  for 
giving  Ireland  over  to  such  hands.  If  Ireland  may  fairly 
complain  that  Parliament  has  sometimes  neglected  her  needs 
to  spend  its  time  in  faction  fights,  England,  Wales,  and  Scot- 
land may  do  the  same,  and  the  remedy  is  the  abolition  of 
party  government,  not  the  erection  of  another  House  of  party. 
If  Parliament  is  overburdened  with  local  matters,  the  remedy 
is  to  throw  off  a  part  of  the  burden  on  local  assemblies  or 
authorities  generally,  not  to  repeal  the  union  with  Ireland. 
Ignorance  of  Ireland  has  been  pleaded  by  Mr.  Gladstone  as  an 
account  of  his  change  of  mind,  and  he  may  extend  the  plea,  it 
is  believed,  to  Mr.  Morley,  his  reputed  partner  in  the  author- 
ship of  his  Bill.  But  Parliament,  as  a  body,  has  not  been 
uninformed;  it  has  had  a  hundred  Irish  members  to  inform 
it.  To  say  that  British  statesmen  have  not  cared  for  Irish 
questions,  that  the  Irish  problem  has  not  received  their  anx- 
ious, their  painfully  anxious,  attention,  is  most  unjust,  as 
every  one  who  has  lived  among  them  knows. 

Pledged  or  unpledged,  Pitt  desired,  and  did  his  best  to  carry. 
Catholic  Emancipation.  That  he  was  insincere  and  secretly 
counted  on  the  King's  resistance  is  a  vile  calumny,  for  which 
no  shadow  of  proof  has  been  produced.  He  was  baffled  by  the 
intrigue  of  Wedderburn  and  the  bishops.  If  he  took  time,  it 
was  only  because  he  wished  to  get  his  Cabinet  perfectly  united 
on  the  question  before  he  approached  the  King.  He  paid  the 
debt  of  honour  by  resignation.  He  afterwards  returned  to 
power  without  insisting  on  Catholic  Emancipation.  But  was 
he  to  leave  the  nation  leaderless  in  extremity,  or  was  he  to 
depose  the  King?  Pitt,  acting  in  tremendous  times,  some- 
times erred.  The  contrast  between  the  brightness  of  the  first 
half  of  his  career  and  the  cloud  which  overhung  the  second 
half  is  one  of  the  saddest  tilings  in  our  history.     But  he  was 


THE   IRISH  QUESTION.  315 

an  upright  English  gentleman;  he  was  a  sincere  lover  of  his 
country;  he  never  left  the  path  of  honour,  practised  deceit, 
or  uttered  untruth.  We  could  as  easily  imagine  him  traduc- 
ing his  country  in  a  foreign  press  as  giving  a  pledge  to  the 
Catholics  and  secretly  relying  on  the  King's  bigotry  for  a 
release. 

Catholic  Emancipation,  like  all  domestic  reform  and  im- 
provement, whether  for  Ireland  or  Great  Britain,  was  delayed 
till  the  end  of  the  mortal  conflict  with  revolutionary  France, 
and  afterwards  with  the  ravening  Empire  to  which  she  had  given 
birth.  Then  it  came  with  other  liberal  measures,  though  not 
in  the  best  way,  and  when  by  postponement  it  had  lost  much 
of  its  grace.  There  followed  another  pause,  after  which  came 
the  disestablishment  of  the  State  Church.  In  respect  of 
religious  equality,  Ireland  is  now  in  advance  of  the  other  two 
Kingdoms,  verifying  in  this  case  Cromwell's  saying  that  she 
offered  a  clean  paper  for  the  trial  of  reforms.  Disestablish- 
ment might  have  come  earlier  if  some  of  the  Irish  members 
in  the  House  of  Commons  would  have  devoted  their  attention 
to  justice  for  Ireland  instead  of  devoting  it  to  the  Galway 
Packet  Contract,  as  for  more  than  one  session  they  did. 
Whatever  pledge  had  been  given,  whatever  expectation  had 
been  held  out  to  the  Catholics  at  the  time  of  the  Union,  was 
now  virtually  fulfilled.  The  compact,  if  compact  the  deed 
could  be  called  which  was  written  with  the  finger  of  necessity, 
was  now  perfectly  made  good,  and  the  last  stain  of  moral 
invalidity  was  removed. 

Ireland  also  received  from  the  Imperial  Parliament  a  system 
of  national  education  which  the  priests,  saving  a  few  Liber- 
als, such  as  Moriarty,  opposed,  and  which,  if  Home  Rule  were 
granted,  the  priests  would  to-morrow  overturn.  ISTor  can  it 
be  truly  alleged  that  the  Irish  since  the  Union  have  been  sub- 
ject to  social  disparagement  in  the  slightest  degree,  whatever 
discredit  may  have  been  brought  upon  them  in  former  days 
by  Irish  heiress-hunters  and  adventurers.  To  say  that  they 
have  been  treated  with  more  studied  contumely  than  the 
negro  in  the  United  States  is  the  very  delirium  of  calumny. 


316  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

If  men  behti,ve  as  Irish  members  behave  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, they  will  draw  odium  on  themselves  and  those  who 
sent  them  there.  Otherwise,  the  peculiarities  of  Irish  charac- 
ter, like  those  of  English  or  Scotch  character,  may  have  been 
objects  of  harmless  jest,  objects  of  hatred  they  have  never 
been.  There  are  no  better  mirrors  of  public  sentiment  than 
the  public  schools  and  the  universities ;  let  any  one  who  has 
been  at  them  say  whether  he  ever  knew  an  Irish  youth  in- 
sulted or  ill-treated  on  account  of  his  place  of  birth. 

About  thirty  years  ago  the  writer,  during  a  summer  spent 
in  Ireland,  enjoyed  the  intimate  converse  of  some  of  the  best 
Irish  patriots  and  Liberals.  These  men  were  staunch  Union- 
ists, and  would  never  hear  of  any  paltering  with  that  question. 
They  saw  the  necessity  of  social  and  economical  reforms,  but 
the  only  political  grievances,  so  far  as  the  writer  remembers, 
of  which  they  complained  in  connection  with  the  Union,  were 
the  necessity  of  going  to  Westminster  for  private  bill  legis- 
lation and  that  of  carrying  appeals  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
both  processes  being  troublesome  and  expensive.  The  first 
grievance  might  be  removed  by  allowing  Irish  committees  of 
the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  for  private  bills  to  sit  in  the 
vacation  at  Dublin,  and  to  report  to  Westminster.  The  second 
might  be  mitigated  by  the  institution  of  a  delegate  court, 
though  the  unity  of  the  Supreme  Court  could  not  be  broken 
without  breaking  the  unity  of  law.  A  capital  grievance  is 
now  made  of  the  Vice-Royalty,  or  Castle  government  as  it  is 
styled,  which  is  dubbed  an  Austrian  Satrapy.  The  Vice- 
Royalty  is,  no  doubt,  a  relic  of  dependence.  In  1850,  a  bill 
for  its  abolition  passed  the  House  of  Commons  by  an  over- 
whelming majority,  and  was  dropped  in  deference  to  protests 
from  Ireland. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  shortcomings  of  Parliament 
in  legislating  for  Ireland  between  the  Union  and  this  out- 
break, it  may  safely  be  said  that  the  spirit  of  legislation  has 
been  just.  The  measures,  so  far  as  their  intention  has  been 
fulfilled,  have  always  made  for  justice.  To  treat  Ireland  with 
kindness  and  indemnify  her  for  sufferings  past,  has  been  the 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  317 

general  desire  of  the  English  people.  Foreign  statesmen,  as 
impartial  observers,  have  seen  this.  Guizot,  though  an  ad- 
mirer and  student  of  English  institutions,  was  not  an  Anglo- 
maniac,  and  as  Prime  Minister  of  France  he  had  quarrelled 
more  than  once  with  British  governments.  It  was  about  1865, 
before  the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church,  that  he  was 
heard  to  say  that  the  conduct  of  England  towards  Ireland  for 
the  last  thirty  years  had  been  admirable.  He  was  reminded 
that  to  do  Ireland  complete  justice,  disestablishment  was  still 
required.  He  assented,  but  at  the  same  time  emphatically 
repeated  his  encomium.  This  may  be  contrasted  with  the 
language  of  American-Irish  conventions,  which  charge  the 
British  Parliament  with  organising  famine  in  Ireland  to  de- 
stroy the  people  whom  it  has  not  been  able  to  extirpate  Avith 
the  sword. 

Coercion  Bills,  alas !  there  have  been  many,  but  they  have 
been  generally  agrarian,  not  political.  It  cannot  be  said  that 
for  agrarian  outrage  they  have  not  been  needful.  Govern- 
ment cannot  abdicate  its  jDrimary  functions,  nor  can  a  country 
be  left  to  savage  and  murderous  lawlessness,  though  the  law 
may  require  change.  When  for  giving  unpopular  evidence  a 
man  and  his  family  of  seven  were  burned  alive  in  their  house, 
and  outrages  of  this  kind  were  protected  by  conspiracy,  when 
a  farmer  for  defending  his  house  against  nightly  ruffians  was 
shot  at  the  chapel  door  in  the  presence  of  hundreds,  who  con- 
nived at  the  murder,  strong  measures  could  hardly  be  avoided 
if  civilisation  was  to  be  saved.  Most  European  governments 
would  have  declared  martial  law.  That  of  Italy,  which  is 
liberal  enough,  represses  agrarian  conspiracy  by  armed  force. 
The  number  of  the  Coercion  Bills,  though  it  sounds  appalling, 
is  really  a  proof  of  the  constant  effort  to  do  without  coercion 
and  go  back  to  the  ordinary  course  of  law. 

Since  the  Union,  not  only  has  there  been  no  civil  war  or 
serious  conflict  between  the  races  and  religions  in  Ireland, 
but  there  has  been  no  political  rebellion  or  revolutionar}^ 
movement  of  the  slightest  force.  O'Connell's  repeal  agitation 
took  no  hold,  and  at  last  degenerated  into  a  protracted  farce 


318  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

or  an  excuse  for  levying  O'Connell's  "rent"  npon  the  people. 
Smith  O'Brien's  insurrection,  in  1848,  though  the  air  of 
Europe  was  charged  with  revolution,  ended  in  ridicule  and  a 
cabbage  garden.  Other  political  conspiracies  have  flashed  in 
the  pan.  This  last,  it  seems,  had  its  origin,  not  among  Irish 
patriots,  but  among  Irishmen  of  the  Anglican  Church,  who 
resented  disestablishment,  so  that  it  may  be  regarded  as  the 
last  service  rendered  by  a  State  Church  to  the  State. 

The  commercial  grievances  which  existed  before  the  Union 
have  been  wholly  swept  away.  Great  Britain  has  opened  for 
Irish  produce  the  best  market  in  the  world.  She  has  given 
employment  in  her  manufacturing  cities  to  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  Irish  who  would  have  starved  on  their  own  soil. 
Her  capital  would  open  up  Irish  resources  if  it  were  allowed, 
and  the  capitalists  were  sure  of  receiving  dividends  in  money, 
not  in  bvillets. 

Whatever  appearance  of  strength  political  disaffection  has 
shown  has  been  derived  from  agrarian  discontent.  This  is 
emphatically  true  of  the  present  rebellion.  It  cannot  be 
doubted  that  the  agrarian  question  in  Ireland  called  for  legis- 
lative interposition.  Erom  causes  already  mentioned,  the 
manorial  system  had  there  failed.  Absenteeism  was  only  part 
of  the  evil,  and  some  of  the  estates  of  absentees  were  very  well 
and  liberally  managed,  though  to  the  Irishman,  of  all  men, 
nothing  can  make  up  for  the  absence  of  his  social  chief.  The 
root  of  the  mischief  lay  not  so  much  in  the  system  of  tenure 
as  in  the  swarming  of  the  people,  under  a  Church  which 
practically  discourages  economy,  over  a  soil  unfit  for  grain, 
and  on  which  they  could  be  maintained  only  by  the  treacherous 
potato.  Rents  were  raised  to  an  excessive  amount  by  the 
desperate  bidding  of  the  people  against  each  other  for  the  land 
which  Avas  their  sole  means  of  subsistence.  There  would  be 
distress  from  over-population  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Province 
of  Quebec  as  there  is  in  Roman  Catholic  Ireland,  were  there 
not  a  ready  outlet  into  the  United  States.  Unless  thrift  could 
be  given  to  the  Irish  peasant  with  security  of  tenure,  he  would 
soon  be  in  the  hands  of  the  money-lender,  who  neither  resides 


THE  IRISH   QUESTION.  319 

nor  remits,  and  the  more  money-lenders  were  shot  the  higher 
interest  woukl  be.  The  Church,  too,  would  probably  lay  her 
hands  on  a  large  part  of  that  which  the  landlord  had  resigned. 
Those  who  write  most  sympathetically  on  Irish  sorrow,  if  they 
write  at  all  fairly,  do  not  omit  to  mention  the  indisposition  of 
the  Irish  peasant  to  steady  labour;  and  the  defect,  whether 
inborn  or  produced  by  long  discouragement,  is  now  too  prob- 
ably ingrained  and  cannot  fail  to  tell.  Still,  Irish  tenure 
called  for  reform.  Possibly,  it  may  have  been  necessary  to 
provide  for  the  general  abolition  of  the  dual  ownership.  But 
this  should  have  been  done  by  the  hand  of  deliberate  caution 
and  impartial  justice,  not  by  lawless  violence,  class  passion, 
and  the  unscrupulous  malignity  of  faction.  As  it  is,  faith  in 
contracts,  the  foundation  of  commerce  and  almost  of  civilisa- 
tion, has  been  seriously  shaken  in  the  process,  and  property 
has  been  made  generally  insecure.  Purchasers  under  recent 
Acts  of  Parliament,  such  as  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act,  even 
purchasers  from  the  State  under  the  Disestablishment  Act, 
are  despoiled  or  marked  for  spoliation  without  compunction, 
or  rather  with  insolent  delight.  Mr.  Gladstone  and  his  col- 
leagues saw  what  morality  and  the  national  honour  required. 
They  showed  this  by  their  first  proposals  on  the  subject,  which 
recognised  the  claim  of  the  landlords  of  Ireland  to  protection 
and  indemnification.  They  appeared  to  think  that  they  could 
draw  the  line  of  "rapine"  at  Ireland;  and  the  factory  lords 
who  voted  with  tliem  seemed  to  think  that  they  could  draw  the 
line  at  property  in  land. 

In  1847  the  potato  brought  its  periodical  dearth  on  the  most 
frightful  scale.  Great  Britain,  charged  with  organising  famine 
to  extirpate  the  Irish,  did  everything  in  her  power  for  their 
relief.  To  let  in  food  for  Ireland,  the  fiscal  system  was  sus- 
jDended  and  the  ports  were  thrown  open,  which  O'Connell  had 
said  only  an  Irish  Parliament  would  do.  The  present  leader 
of  the  Irish  party  in  the  House  of  Commons  has  borne  witness 
as  a  historian  to  the  good- will  and  generosity  shown  on  tlial 
occasion  by  the  English  people. 

There  was,  nevertheless,  a  vast  exodus  to  America  and  a 


320  QUESTIONS   OF   'THE   DAY. 

proportionate  increase  of  Irish  influence,  both  on  the  domestic 
politics  of  the  United  States  and  on  the  relations  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain.     What  Irish  influence  on 
American  politics  and  on  the  affairs  of  American  cities  is,  it  is 
needless  to  say.     The  Irish  immigrants,  for  two  generations  at 
least,   do  not  become   American   citizens,  but   remain   Irish, 
prosecuting  their  clan  feud.     They  keep  their  national  or  rebel 
flag,  and  annually  unfurl  it  in  face  of  American  nationality 
over  the  City  Hall  at  New  York.     The  name  it  probably  was 
that  drew  them  into  the  Democratic  party.     Into  that  party, 
at  all  events,  they  went.     They  almost  to  a  man  supported 
slavery,  notwithstanding  the  generous  protests  of  O'Connell. 
At  the  time  of  the  Civil  War,  rising  at  New  York,  they  mal- 
treated and  butchered  negroes,  till  the  Americans  brought  up 
troops,  and  instead  of  passing  Coercion  Bills  proceeded  to 
quell  murderous  lawlessness  by  summary  execution.     It  may 
safely  be  said  that  on  that  day  twenty  times  as  many  Irish  fell 
as  have  suffered  for  political  offences  since  the  Union.     To 
proclaim  indemnity  for  crime  committed  on  political  pretexts 
would  be  to  put  society  at  the  mercy  of  any  brigand  who  chose 
to  say  that  his  object  in  filling  the  country  with  blood  and 
havoc  was   not   plunder,  but   anarchy  or  usurpation.     Irish 
influence  upon  the  relation  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  has  given  rise  to  acts  of  political  subserviency 
and  breaches  of  international  comity  on  the  part  of  American 
legislatures,   presidents,   and   statesmen,   of   which    patriotic 
Americans  in  private  own  themselves  ashamed.     British  op- 
ponents of  Irish  domination  are,  in  fact,  labouring  to  redeem 
the  politics  of  both  nations  from  a  noxious  and  humiliating 
yoke.     American  Fenianism  has  reinforced  Irish  Fenianism 
with  rhetorical  vitriol,  and,  what  is  of  more  consequence,  with 
money,  the  large  contributions  of  which,  being  at  all  events 
for  a  sentimental  object,  would  be  creditable  to  the  race  were 
it  not  pretty  certain  that  they  are  to  a  great  extent  enforced. 
Here  the  danger  from  American  Fenianism  ends.     To  enlist 
the  American  people  in  their  own  clan  feud  and  drive  the 
Eepublic  into  war  with  Great  Britain  is  the  constant  object  of 


THE  IRISH   QUESTION.  321 

the  American-Irish.  But  the  Americans,  whatever  the  poli- 
ticians may  be  constrained  to  say,  have  no  intention  of  being 
enlisted  in  any  one's  clan  feud,  and  will  never  go  to  war  in  an 
Irish  quarrel.  Nor  will  they  put  up  with  Irish  conspiracy 
beyond  a  certain  point.  A  strong  reaction  was  caused  by  the 
murder  of  Dr.  Cronin.  The  Germans  in  the  United  States  are 
fully  as  strong  as  the  Irish.  They  are  Germans  in  feeling 
still,  even  those  of  them  who  were  political  refugees,  as  was 
seen  during  the  Franco-German  war.  And  so  long  as  England 
and  their  mother  country  are  good  friends,  they  will  never 
consent  to  a  war  for  Ireland.  The  Prime  Minister  of 
England  who  is  not  ashamed  to  threaten  the  nation  with  the 
vengeance  of  the  Irish-Americans  if  it  will  not  surrender  to 
Home  Rule,  might  spare  himself  that  disgrace  and  the  country 
that  insult. 

To  the  sister  island,  also,  the  famine  drove  many,  and 
the  dreadful  Irish  quarters  of  Liverpool  and  Glasgow  became 
more  crowded  than  before.  Irish  colonisation  of  Great  Britain, 
while  it  practically  helps  to  answer  the  charge  of  British 
cruelty  to  Ireland,  is  a  serious  matter  for  England  and  Scotland 
in  a  political,  a  social,  and  an  industrial  point  of  view.  ''  There 
are  no  Irishmen,"  says  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  *'more  fierce  or 
resolute  in  the  national  faith  than  the  Irishmen  who  settle  in 
England  or  Scotland."  "They  are  far  more  extreme  in  their 
views,"  he  adds,  "than  the  majority  of  the  Irish  in  America." 
He  depicts  them  as  a  clan  with  a  feeling  of  estrangement  from 
those  around  them.  In  confirmation  of  his  description,  it  may 
be  said  that  not  all  of  those  who,  at  the  time  of  the  Phoenix 
Park  murders,  were  going  about  in  Irish  quarters  of  British 
cities,  saw  reason  to  believe  that,  as  Mr.  O'Connor  says,  the 
blow  struck  in  the  Irish  cause  was  regarded  by  the  whole  Irish 
race  with  unmixed  sorrow.  It  is  by  the  Irish  vote  in  not  a 
few  cases  that  British  constituencies  have  been  turned  in 
favour  of  Plome  Eule.  Make  Ireland  independent  and  the 
Irishry  in  Great  Britain  will  become  the  outpost  of  a  foreign, 
probably  of  a  hostile,  power. 

Such,  in  general  outline,  is  the  story.     From  what  part  of  it 

y 


322  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

would  any  reasonable  and  patriotic  man  draw  the  inference 
that  it  would  be  good  for  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  or  for 
either  of  them,  to  erect  Celtic  and  Catholic  Ireland  into  a 
separate  nation?  Whatever  unity  Ireland  has,  whatever  she 
has  of  constitutional  government,  of  free  institutions,  of  civili- 
sation, has  come  to  her  from  her  partner  in  the  Union,  though, 
owing  to  unhappy  circumstances  either  of  nature  or  of  history, 
it  has  come  to  her  in  a  cruel  way.  The  past  may  be  deplored; 
undone  it  cannot  be;  by  an  uuAvise  policy  its  evils  may  be 
renewed.  We  see  into  what  hands  Ireland  would  pass. 
There,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  turning  the  debate  into  a 
brawl,  sits  the  Home  Eule  Parliament  of  Ireland.  In  Mr. 
T.  P.  O'Connor's  lively  sketch  of  the  recent  history  of  Irish 
parties,  it  is  instructive  to  note  the  pervading  assumption  that 
the  Irish  politician  who  comes  within  reach  of  corruption  will 
infallibly  be  corrupted.  Mr.  O'Connor  describes  to  us  the  way 
in  which,  under  the  "Liberator,"  O'Connell,  the  system  was 
worked.  "  A  profligate  landlord,  or  an  aspiring  but  briefless 
barrister,  was  elected  for  an  Irish  constituency  as  a  follower 
of  the  popular  leader  of  the  day  and  as  the  mouthpiece  of  his 
principles.  When  he  entered  the  House  of  Commons  he  soon 
gave  it  to  be  understood  by  the  distributors  of  State  patronage 
that  he  was  open  to  a  bargain.  The  time  came  when  in  the 
party  divisions  his  vote  was  of  consequence,  and  the  bargain 
was  then  struck,  the  vote  from  him  and  the  office  from  them." 
Under  the  auspices  of  the  Repeal  Association  there  was 
returned,  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor  says,  "instead  of  seventy  inde- 
j)endent  and  honest  Irish  representatives,  a  motley  gang  of  as 
disreputable  and  needy  adventurers  as  ever  trafficked  in  the 
blood  and  tears  of  a  nation."  As  it  was  in  O'Connell's  time, 
so,  according  to  the  same  authority,  it  continued  to  be  after- 
wards. "  Since  the  break-up  of  the  Butt  party,  a  number  of 
his  most  prominent  followers  have  accepted  office,  and  the  few 
that  still  retain  places  in  the  House  of  Commons  have,  with 
scarcely  an  exception,  gone  over  to  the  Liberal  party,  and  are 
notoriously  as  open  to  employment  as  the  cabbies  in  Palace 
yard."     Let  him  who  accuses  us  of  treating  Irish  politicians 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  323 

with  disrespect  see  what  estimate  is  formed  of  them  by  their 
own  kin.  In  the  Galway  case  Mr.  Parnell,  in  forcing  Mr. 
O'Shea  on  the  electorate,  gave  us  a  measure  of  the  indepen- 
dence of  Irish  constituencies.  What  sort  of  security  woukl 
there  be  against  the  appearance  of  a  series  of  Sadleirs  and 
Keoghs  in  a  Parliament  at  Dublin?  These  battles  of  rarnell- 
ites  and  Anti-Parnellites  over  the  money-bag  of  the  agitation, 
do  they  not  show  us  what  is  to  be  expected  in  the  way  of 
disinterestedness  as  well  as  of  concord? 

At  first  the  priest  will  probably  share  the  power  and  the 
spoil  with  the  patriot.  There  is  no  use  in  saying  that  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  would  not  do  what  it  is  a  necessity  of 
its  nature  to  do,  what  it  tells  you  plainly  in  the  Syllabus  and 
Encyclical  that  it  claims  a  right  to  do,  and  what  it  has  every- 
where done  to  the  full  extent  of  its  power.  It  would  begin  by 
putting  an  end  to  the  popular  system  of  education  which  the 
United  Parliament  has  established,  or  turning  the  common 
schools  into  organs  of  ecclesiasticism  and  their  teaching  into  a 
preparation  for  the  first  communion,  as  it  has  done  in  Quebec. 
It  would  proceed  formally  or  informally  to  establish  itself, 
and  in  so  doing  it  need  fear  no  opposition  from  Gladstonian 
Liberals,  who  are  fain  to  palliate  its  tyrannical  action  in  the 
elections  and  to  uphold  the  sinister  rule  which  enables  the 
priest  to  oyersee  and  dictate  the  illiterate  vote.  Small,  to 
judge  from  all  experience  and  from  such  an  analogy  as  that  of 
priestly  rule  in  Quebec,  would  be  the  modicum  of  political 
freedom  which  the  peasant  would  be  allowed  by  his  Church  to 
enjoy  when  the  last  legal  safeguard  was  withdrawn.  In  time, 
perhaps  pretty  soon,  a  rupture  would  come  between  the  priest 
party  and  that  revolutionary  party  to  which  the  more  thorough- 
going Fenians  both  in  Ireland  and  America  belong,  and  which 
is  afliliated  to  the  revolutionary  party  in  Europe.  The  torch 
of  intestine  discord  would  then  be  kindled  once  more.  Be- 
tween the  two  islands  the  relations  could  not  fail  to  be  hostile, 
when  Ireland  was  a  separate  nation,  owing  her  existence  to 
successful  rebellion,  and  setting  out  with  bitter  hatred  in  her 
soul.     Let  people  wlio  talk  sentimentally  about  a  union  of 


324  QUESTIOI^S   OF  THE   DAY. 

hearts,  instead  of  listening  to  the  voice  in  Ireland,  subdued  to 
the  tones  of  a  sucking  dove  while  the  work  of  disunion  is  being 
done,  listen  to  the  genuine  accents  of  Chicago,  or  let  them 
look  into  the  gra^^hic  pages  of  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor,  scan  tlie 
portraits  of  the  Parnellite  leaders  painted  there,  and  draw 
their  inference  as  to  the  direction  which  such  men  would  give 
Irish  sentiment  and  policy  towards  Great  Britain  when  they 
had  an  Irish  Parliament  in  their  hands.  A  British  Premier 
and  his  colleagues  say  that  they  are  proud  to  owe  their  places 
to  the  Irish  disunionists.  Are  they  equally  proud  of  their 
connection  with  the  American  Clan-na-Gael,  bellowing  war  and 
dynamite  against  their  country?  Are  they  proud  of  being 
helped  on  as  they  have  been  in  elections  by  funds  subscribed 
to  a  foreign  organisation  formed  by  murderous  enmity  to  Great 
Britain  ? 

To  a  moral  certainty,  Ireland  would  become  a  thorn  in  the 
side  of  Great  Britain.  To  sustain  herself  against  her  powerful 
neighbour,  she  would  attach  herself'  to  some  foreign  enemy  of 
England,  as  the  tribes  attached  themselves  to  Spain  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  as  Scotland  attached  herself  to  France 
before  the  Union.  This  Great  Britain  could  not  and  would 
not  endure.  Ireland  would  be  reconquered  and  the  circle  of 
woe  would  revolve  again. 

The  effect  on  Irish  prosperity  of  a  patriot  and  priestly 
government  is  not  hard  to  foretell.  Capital  would  fly  the 
island;  employment  would  fall  off.  There  would  be  another 
exodus,  and  the  British  artisan  who  votes  and  shouts  for  dis- 
memberment would  pay  the  penalty  in  an  increased  measure 
of  the  most  depressing  of  all  competition,  unless  he  should 
insist  on  immigration  laws,  in  which  case  misery  would  abound 
in  Ireland.  When  this  rebellion  broke  out  Ireland  was  doing 
well,  commerce  was  improving,  the  deposits  in  the  savings  banks 
had  increased,  and  pauperism  had  been  greatly  diminished. 

There  is  no  reason  for  believing  that  the  mass  of  the  Irish 
people  want  a  separate  Parliament.  Nobody  who  knew  them 
well  ever  said  that  their  aspirations  were  political.  It  was 
the    land    that   they    wanted,    and  they  were  Home  Rulers 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  325 

because  they  were  told  that  a  Home  Rule  Parliament  would 
give  them  the  land.  They  showed  scarcely  a  spark  of  resent- 
ment when  the  Home  Rule  Bill  was  thrown  out  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  With  great  difficulty,  generous  as  they  are  by  nature, 
have  they  been  made  to  subscribe  to  the  movement,  leaving  the 
burden  to  be  mainly  borne  by  their  American  friends.  It  is 
probable  that  most  of  them  would  be  glad  to  be  under  a  strong 
and  just  government,  enjoying  their  improved  holdings  in 
peace.  They  are  wanting  in  political  independence,  and 
through  the  whole  course  of  these  events  have  been  com- 
pletely under  the  control  of  the  terrorist  organisations  or  the 
priests.  If  it  could  be  said  with  regard  to  the  Union  that  the 
compact  was  morally  invalid  because  it  had  been  made  by 
force,  not  less  may  it  be  said  with  regard  to  Home  Eule  that 
the  compact  would  be  morally  invalid  as  having  been  made 
under  lawless  coercion. 

With  respect  to  the  case  of  Ulster,  all  that  need  be  said 
more  is  that  we  shall  only  get  what  we  deserve  if  the  noble 
province,  thrust  by  us  in  spite  of  her  passionate  appeals  to  our 
good  faith  out  of  the  nationality  to  which  she  belongs,  and 
forced  to  accept  the  yoke  of  all  that  she  most  abhors,  instead 
of  our  best  and  firmest  friend  should  become  our  bitterest 
enemy.     Nor  is  this  unlikely  to  be  the  result. 

It  is  needless  again  to  discuss  Mr.  Gladstone's  Bill.  It  was 
torn  to  pieces  by  Lord  Selborne  in  the  Lords'  debate,  while 
the  ministers  in  charge  of  it  could  reply  only  by  vague  asser- 
tions that  in  spite  of  probabilities  all  would  turn  out  well, 
or  with  a  levity,  which  showed  in  what  spirit,  sure  of  a 
mechanical  majority,  they  were  dealing  with  the  fundamental 
institutions  of  the  country.  The  measure  is  a  hopeless  jumble 
of  the  National,  Imperial,  Federal,  and  Colonial  systems. 
Nobody  imagines  that  it  could  work,  or  that  it  is  in  truth  any- 
thing but  a  complicated  mask  for  the  surrender  of  Ireland  to 
the  rebellion.  Mr.  Kedmond  feels  sure  enough  of  the  sub- 
serviency of  the  government,  the  life  of  which  is  practically 
in  his  hands,  to  proclaim  openly  that  the  measure  is  not  final; 
in  utlier  words,  tliat  the  end  is  to  be  complete  independence, 


32G  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

or,  as  Mr.  Parnell  said,  "  the  severance  of  the  last  link  which 
binds  Ireland  to  Great  Britain."  Mr.  Parnell  said  this  when 
he  chose  to  speak  the  truth,  and  if  he  afterwards  disclaimed 
the  statement,  we  know  from  his  own  lips  what  his  disclaimer 
was  worth.  ^  On  the  morrow  of  Home  Rule  the  Union  Jack 
will  be  hauled  down  over  Ireland,  the  rebel  Green  will  take 
its  place,  and  the  last  Lord-Lieutenant,  if  he  is  a  Gladstonian, 
will  humbly  lend  a  hand  on  the  occasion.  Mr.  Gladstone's 
Lord-Lieutenant  did  in  fact  move  joyously  through  Dublin 
with  green  flags  all  around  him,  while  no  British  flag  but  that 
of  his  own  escort  was  seen.  "  If  any  man  attempts  to  haul 
down  the  American  flag,  shoot  him  on  the  spot; "  so  said  the 
Unionist  General  Dix  at  the  time  of  Secession.  Americans 
remember  the  day. 

Under  the  Parliamentary  system,  if  there  are  two  Parlia- 
ments, there  are  two  nations.  The  Crown  is  called,  ironically 
as  it  may  be  supposed,  the  golden  link.  A  golden  link  with 
a  vengeance  it  was  in  the  days  before  the  Union.  But  it  has 
now  no  mass  of  patronage,  no  bribery  fund,  no  nomination 
boroughs  in  Ireland.  Had  the  government  meant  to  preserve 
the  Union,  it  would  have  welcomed,  instead  of  repelling,  as 
it  did,  amendments  distinctly  asserting  the  supremacy  of  the 
Imperial  over  the  Irish  Parliament.  In  order  to  make  sure 
that  the  ostensible  safeguards  shall  not  be  real,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  keep  the  British  party  of  surrender  in  power, 
Ireland  is,  besides  a  Parliament  of  her  own,  to  have  a  garri- 
son of  eighty  Irish  members  in  the  Parliament  of  Great  Brit- 
ain. The  affected  indifference  of  the  government  about  this 
part  of  their  measure  only  betrayed  the  depth  of  the  design. 
Was  such  a  cup  of  shame  ever  put  to  the  lips  of  a  great  nation? 
If  England  needs  to  be  disciplined  for  her  rejection  of  a  politi- 
cal Messiah,  this  measure  does  it  with  a  vengeance.  Neither 
in  America  nor  elsewhere  has  she  an  enemy  who  does  not 
watch  its  progress  with  delight.     To  have  voted  for  it,  if  the 

1  See  the  evidence  of  Mr.  Parnell  before  the  Special  Commission,  May 
3,  1889 :  Beport  of  the  Prorecdiiufs  before  the  Commissioners,  reprinted 
from  The  Times,  Vol.  II.,  pp.  798,  799. 


THE  IRISH   QUESTION.  327 

nation  ever  recovers  its  sense  and  spirit,  will  be  a  brand.  No- 
toriously of  those  who  voted  for  it  many  spoke  in  private 
against  it.  They  trusted  to  the  Lords  to  throw  it  out.  Tliese 
same  men  will  now  court  popularity  by  swelling  the  cry  against 
the  Lords.  Then  perhaps  they  will  read  homilies  on  the 
knavery  of  American  politicians. 

It  is  needless  to  discuss  again  the  false,  and  for  the  most 
part  absurd,  analogies  which  have  been  adduced  to  lure  the 
British  people  into  dismemberment :  that  of  Iceland,  a  petty 
community  a  thousand  miles  from  Denmark;  that  of  Canada, 
a  colony  three  thousand  miles  off,  and  virtually  independent; 
that  of  the  Scandinavian  Kingdoms,  whose  union  is  not  home 
rule  but  federation,  and  is,  moreover,  going  to  pieces  before 
our  eyes;  that  of  Germany,  which  again  is  a  confederation 
tending  probably  towards  a  closer  national  unity ;  or  the  un- 
easy but  co-equal  wedlock  of  Austria  and  Hungary,  which 
presents  no  point  of  real  resemblance,  historical,  ethnologi- 
cal, or  structural,  to  the  measure  proposed  for  Ireland.  These 
analogies  have  not  much  figured  in  recent  debates.  Nor  can 
anybody  imagine  that  the  position  of  States  in  a  federation 
such  as  the  States  of  the  American  Union  or  the  Provinces  of 
Canada,  each  with  its  own  local  government  on  the  same  foot- 
ing and  all  sharing  alike  in  the  federal  government,  bears  any 
resemblance  to  that  of  a  vassal  State  such  as  Ireland  would  be 
made  by  the  Home  Eule  Bill.  The  only  real  analogies  are 
those  of  vassal  Parliaments,  and  these  all  point  distinctly  the 
same  way.  Alike  in  Ireland  before  the  Union,  in  the  Ameri- 
can Colonies,  and  in  Canada,  the  institution  of  a  vassal  Par- 
liament, by  the  aspirations  which  it  excited  and  the  friction 
which  it  induced,  gave  birth  to  a  struggle  for  complete  inde- 
pendence, whicl!.  in  tlie  case  of  the  American  Colonies  ended 
with  the  Revolution,  and  in  the  case  of  Canada  with  a  twofold 
rebellion.  The  Irish  politicians  who  will  be  the  leaders  of 
the  Parliament  at  Dublin,  have  all,  according  to  an  admiring 
chronicler,  been  distinguished  by  their  burning  hatred  of  Brit- 
ish rule,  as  well  as  by  what  he  would  style  the  fervour,  and 
others  might  style  the  venomous  violence,  of  their  patriotism. 


328  QUESTIONS   OF  THE  DAY. 

Is  it  likely  that  their  hatred  of  British  rule  would  become  love 
or  even  toleration  of  British  supremacy? 

If  there  is  any  other  analogy  really  in  point,  it  is  that  of 
the  Protestant  minority  under  the  rule  of  a  Eoman  Catholic 
majority  in  the  Province  of  Quebec.  The  domination  of  the 
priesthood  there  is  controlled  by  the  influence  of  a  Protestant 
confederation.  Yet  there  is  enough  to  teach  Ulster  what  her 
doom  under  Home  Eule  would  be,  and  how  the  Exchequer  of  a 
Catholic  Parliament  would  be  likely  to  deal  with  the  strong- 
box of  Belfast. 

It  is  not  Ulster  or  Protestantism  alone  that  desires  the 
preservation  of  the  Union,  but  almost  the  entire  wealth  and 
intelligence  of  Ireland,  whether  Protestant  or  Catholic. 
American  enemies  of  Great  Britain,  while  they  abet  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's policy,  admit  that  he  has  hardly  a  supporter  among 
the  classes  in  which,  if  education  and  responsibility  are  essen- 
tial to  political  wisdom,  the  political  wisdom  of  Ireland  must 
reside. 

To  turn  the  United  Kingdom  into  a  confederation  is  possi- 
ble if  you  will  begin  by  restoring  the  divisions  of  the  Hep- 
tarchy together  with  the  contemporary  divisions  of  Scotland, 
Wales,  and  Ireland.  You  will  then  have  the  material  for  a 
confederation,  which  is  a  large  group  of  tolerably  equal  States. 
A  federation  of  England,  Scotland,  Wales,  and  Ireland  would 
be  an  everlasting  cabal  of  the  three  lesser  States  against  the 
greater.  To  the  reconstruction  of  the  United  Kingdom  on 
the  federal  system  the  only  objection  is  that  the  nation,  and 
still  more  certainly  the  Empire,  would  go  to  pieces  in  the 
process.  It  is  singular  that  this  passion  for  federation  should 
have  seized  on  England,  just  as  in  the  classic  land  of  the  sys- 
tem the  opposite  principle  has  gained  the  ascendant;  for  in 
the  United  States,  thanks  to  railroads  and  other  unifying 
influences,  together  with  the  sentiment  bred  of  the  War  of 
Secession,  nationality  has  been  prevailing  over  State  right, 
and  the  unification  of  the  laws  of  commerce  and  marriage  is 
in  the  air.  SAvitzerland  has  moved  in  the  same  way.  It  is 
only  Great  Britain  that  is  in  love  with  dissolution. 


THE   IRISH   QUESTION.  329 

Tlie  Home  Rule  Bill  was  carried  througli  the  House  of  Com- 
mons by  the  help  of  twenty-three  Irish  votes,  to  which,  by 
the  admission  of  the  author  of  the  Bill  itself,  Ireland  had  no 
title.  Then  it  was  to  be  palmed  upon  the  country,  which  is 
known  to  be  averse  to  it,  by  uniting  with  it  a  number  of  incen- 
diary proposals,  and  carrying  the  whole  lump  by  means  of 
appeals  to  class  passions,  local  antipathies,  and  the  lure  of 
socialistic  confiscation. 

To  carry  Home  Kule  an  appeal  has  been  made,  not  without 
success,  to  the  separatist  spirit  in  Scotland  and  Wales  as  well 
as  in  Ireland,  and  fires  of  provincial  hatred  which  slumbered 
beneath  the  ashes  of  centuries  have  been  raked  anew.  A 
Scotch  member  of  Parliament  speaks  of  English  influence  as 
"foreign,"  and  the  government  was,  under  Mr.  Gladstone,  and 
is,  under  his  successor,  animated  by  something  like  hostility 
to  England.  Scotland  and  Wales  have  long  been  in  a  state 
of  social,  economical,  and  intellectual  fusion  with  England, 
the  only  exception  being,  perhaps,  the  secluded  parts  of  Wales, 
which  are  cut  off  by  the  lingering  of  the  Celtic  language  from 
the  general  life  and  progress.  Scotland  was  wafted  by  tlie 
Union  from  poverty  to  comparative  wealth;  she  owed  to  it 
parliamentary  government,  her  own  parliamentary  institutions 
having  proved  almost  abortive;  and  she  owed  to  it  internal 
union,  for  the  Lowlands  were  not  strong  enough  to  subdue  and 
incorporate  the  Highlands.  Both  Scotland  and  Wales  have 
had  their  full  share  of  all  the  advantages,  emoluments,  and 
honours  of  the  Empire.  What  would  they  be  as  separate 
nations  with  England  interposed  between  them?  Nothing 
that  is  valuable  or  picturesque  in  local  character  need  be  lost 
by  union.  Was  not  Walter  Scott  a  Scotchman  ?  and  was 
he  not  a  Briton?  Civil  war  is  a  dreadful  thing;  but  there  are 
thinsrs  even  more  dreadful  than  civil  war.  Submission  to  the 
dismemberment  of  the  nation  by  the  sinister  machinations  of 
a  morally  insane  ambition,  would  in  the  end  work  more  havoc 
than  the  civil  sword.  "I  am  prepared,"  said  the  constitu- 
tional and  cautious  Peel,  "to  make  the  declaration  which  was 
made,  and    nobly   made,  by   my   predecessor.   Lord   Althorp, 


380  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

that,  deprecating  as  I  do  all  war,  but,  above  all,  civil  war, 
there  is  no  alternative  which  I  do  not  think  preferable  to  the 
dismemberment  of  this  Empire." 

To  that  dread  arbitrament,  however,  the  Irish  Question  has 
not  yet  come.  The  first  object  of  all  British  citizens  ought  to 
be  to  insist  that  this  Bill,  which  is  not  an  ordinary  law,  or  a 
law  at  all,  but  a  fundamental  change  of  the  national  constitu- 
tion, shall  either  be  frankly  abandoned  or  fairly  submitted  as 
a  single  issue  to  the  constituencies  of  the  United  Kingdom. 
It  is  insufferable  that  the  nation  should  be  kept  in  doubt  as  to 
its  unity  for  the  purposes  of  a  political  game. 


PEOHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


PROHIBITION   IN   CANADA   AND   THE 
UNITED   STATES. 

It  is  evident  that  English  politics  are  beginning  to  be  dis- 
turbed, like  those  of  the  United  States  and  Canada,  by  the 
formation  of  a  Prohibitionist  party.  The  party  usually  calls 
itself  that  of  Temperance.  But  though  we  may  wish  to  be 
courteous,  we  cannot  concede  a  name  which  not  only  begs  the 
question  at  issue,  but  is  a  standing  libel  on  those  who  take 
their  glass  of  wine  or  beer  without  being  in  any  rational  sense 
of  the  term  intemperate.  Temperance  is  one  thing,  total 
abstinence  is  another,  and  coercion,  at  which  these  reformers 
aim,  is  a  third.  As  Temperance  implies  self-restraint,  there 
can  be  no  Temperance,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  where 
there  is  coercion. 

The  "  Temperance  "  people  are  not  usually  inclined  to  listen 
to  anything  so  rationalistic  as  the  lessons  of  experience.  They 
tell  you  that  with  them  it  is  a  matter  not  of  expediency  but  of 
principle ;  that  their  cause  is  the  cause  of  Heaven ;  yours,  if 
you  are  an  opponent,  that  of  the  darker  power;  and  they 
intimate,  with  more  or  less  of  gentleness  and  courtesy,  what, 
if  you  persist  in  getting  in  Heaven's  way,  will  be  your  deserved 
and  inevitable  doom.  To  those,  however,  who  in  practical 
matters  regard  the  dictates  of  experience  as  principles,  and 
who  wish  before  committing  themselves  to  a  particular  kind  of 
legislation  to  know  whether  it  is  likely  to  do  good  or  harm, 
the  result  of  Canadian  or  American  experiment  may  not  be 
uninstructive. 

In  1878  the  Canadian  Parliament  passed  the  Canada  Tem- 
perance Act,  more  commonly  called  the  Scott  Act.  Tlie  pur- 
port of  this  Act  may  be  described  as  county  and  city  option. 

333 


334  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

It  enables  any  county  or  city  adopting  it  by  a  simple  majority 
of  the  electors  to  prohibit  the  sale  of  any  liquor  within  the 
district  for  local  consumption  under  penalty  of  a  fine  of  fifty 
dollars  for  the  first  offence,  a  hundred  for  the  second,  and  two 
months'  imprisonment  for  the  third.  When  adopted,  the  Act 
remains  in  force  for  three  years,  after  which,  upon  a  petition 
sio-ned  by  one-fourth  of  the  electors,  it  may  again  be  submitted 
to  the  vote,  and  if  there  is  a  majority  against  it,  repealed. 

In  the  Province  of  Ontario  there  are  forty-two  counties  and 
eleven  cities.     Twenty-eight  counties  and  two  cities  adopted 
the  Act,  most  of  then!  in  1884  and  1885.     In  1888  ten  counties, 
nine  of  them  at  once,  repealed  it;  and  in  the  following  year 
the  remaining  Scott  Act  counties  and  cities  also  returned  to 
license  law.     The  majorities  for  repeal  were  overwhelming. 
In  Ontario  the  Scott  Act  is  generally  regarded  as  impossible 
of  resuscitation,  and  the  advocates  of  prohibitive  legislation 
are  turning  their  minds  to  other  measures.     This  is  a  genuine 
verdict  of  the  people.     The  liquor-trade  had  exhausted  its 
power  of  opposition  in  the  early  part  of  the  contest ;  in  fact  it 
hardly  appeared  in  the  field  without  doing  mischief  to  its  OAvn 
cause.      ISTor   has    the   verdict    really    been    reversed   by   the 
"  plebiscite  "  recently  taken  in  Ontario.     A  "  plebiscite  "  it  is 
styled,  but  it  is  really  a  mere  collection  of  opinions  without 
legislative  effect  or  the  responsibility  attaching  to  legislative 
effect  which  alone  could  bring  out  the  full  numbers  of  the 
voters  and  give  significance  to  the  vote.     Women,  who  have 
not  the  suffrage,  were  allowed  to  vote.     The  Provincial  Gov- 
ernment, embarrassed  by  Prohibitionists  in  the  Legislature  and 
menaced  by  the  Prohibitionist  vote  outside,  took  this  mode  of 
getting  out  of  the  difficulty.     Only  fifty-eight  per  cent,  of  the 
vote  was  polled  and  the  majority  for  Prohibition  was  in  the 
ratio  of  19  to  11.     This  is  hardly  force  enough  to  pass,  much 
less  is  it  force  enough  to  execute  a  sumptuary  law;    for  we 
may  be  sure  that  while  nearly  all  the  Prohibitionists  would 
vote,   the   mass    of   those   who   abstained   from   voting   were 
indifferent  or  adverse.     The  Prime  Minister  of  the  Dominion 
thinks  it  safe  to  meet  the  demand  of  the  Prohibitionists  with 


PROHIBITION   IN   CANADA   AND   THE   UNITED   STATES.     335 

a  positive  refusal.  In  a  recent  Ontario  election  not  much  was 
heard  of  Prohibition.  A  Commission  of  Inquiry  has  been 
sitting  and  when  this  was  written  was  about  to  report. 

Tlie  general  result  where  the  Scott  Act  was  tried  appeared 
to  have  been  the  substitution  of  an  unlicensed  and  unregulated 
for  a  licensed  and  regulated  trade.  The  demand  for  drink 
remained  the  same,  but  it  was  supplied  in  illicit  ways.  It  was 
found  by  those  who  were  engaged  in  the  campaign  against  the 
Scott  Act  that  the  lowest  class  of  liquor-dealers  were  far  from 
zealous  in  their  opposition  to  prohibitive  legislation.  They 
foresaw  that  the  result  to  them  would  be  simply  sale  of  liquor 
witliout  the  license  fee.  Drunkenness,  instead  of  being  dimin- 
ished, appears  to  have  increased.  A  memorial  signed  by  three 
hundred  citizens  of  Woodstock,  including  nearly  all  the  prin- 
cipal men  of  business  and  professional  men,  but  nobody  con- 
nected with  the  liquor-trade,  said:  "The  Scott  Act  in  this 
town  has  not  diminished  but  has  increased  drunkenness;  it  has 
almost  wholly  prevented  the  use  of  lager  beer,  which  was 
becoming  an  article  of  common  consumption ;  it  has  operated 
to  discourage  the  use  of  light  beverages,  substituting  therefor 
in  ;t  large  measure  ardent  spirits,  and  it  has  led  to  the  opening 
of  many  drinking-places  which  did  not  exist  under  the  license 
law,  and  to  the  sale  of  liquor  being  continued  till  hours  after 
midnight."  "From  my  own  observation,"  said  a  leading 
physician  of  the  same  place,  "and  the  most  trustworthy 
information  privately  and  publicly  received,  I  am  satisfied 
that  the  most  extensive  illicit  traffic  prevails  in  Woodstock, 
that  the  abuse  of  intoxicating  liquors  is  greatly  on  the  increase 
here,  and  that  there  is  a  lamentable  increase  of  drinking 
among  the  younger  men  of  the  community."  At  Milton,  in 
the  county  of  Halton,  the  effects  were  found  to  be  the  same  as 
at  Woodstock.  Before  the  adoption  of  the  Act  there  were  but 
five  places  in  which  liquor  was  sold;  after  the  adoption  of  tlie 
Act  there  were  no  fewer  than  sixteen,  and  owing  to  the  perse- 
cution of  the  hotels  the  traffic  was  thrown  into  the  lowest  and 
worst  hands.  Forty-eight  men  of  business,  including  the 
Mayor  and  Chief  Constable,  signed  a  declaration  that  tlie  Act 


336  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

liad  signally  failed  to  reduce  intemperance;  that  the  trade, 
instead  of  being  in  respectable  hands,  was  in  those  of  the 
bottle -hawkers  and  keepers  of  low  dens;  that  the  effect  of  the 
Act  had  been  the  substitution  to  a  great  extent  of  spirituous 
liquors,  for  malt,  wine,  or  cider  as  beverages;  that  drunken- 
ness, lawlessness,  and  perjury  were  much  more  prevalent  than 
they  had  been  under  license;  and  that  the  Scott  Act  instead 
of  removing  temptation  from  the  young  had  had  the  contrary 
effect,  and  cases  of  juvenile  drunkenness  had  become  shock- 
ingly frequent.  Scores  of  petitions  were  sent  to  Parliament 
from  county  councils  or  other  municipal  bodies  declaring  the 
failure  of  the  Act. 

Professor  Blaikie  of  Edinburgh  has  been  cited  as  speaking 
of  the  general  elevation  of  moral  tone  in  Toronto,  and  attrib- 
uting it  largely  to  the  (jontrol  of  the  liquor  traffic.  This  is 
remarkable,  as  Toronto  did  not  adopt  the  Scott  Act.  It  is 
true,  as  the  Avriter,  after  many  years'  residence  in  Toronto 
gladly  bears  witness,  that  drunkenness  is  seldom  seen  in  her 
streets,  in  her  places  of  amusement,  in  her  excursion  boats 
or  trains,  while  such  intemperance  as  there  is  prevails  chiefly 
among  recent  immigrants.  But  the  credit  is  due  to  spontaneous 
self-control  or  to  the  unforced  influences  of  social  opinion, 
religion,  and  medical  authority.  An  attempt  was  made  to 
quicken  improvement  by  withdrawing  at  once  the  licenses  of 
eighty  places  where  liquor  was  sold.  The  result  was  un- 
favourable. Saloon  keepers  who  lost  their  licenses  took  to 
contraband  sale,  there  was  an  increase  of  crowding  and  ex- 
citement in  the  houses  which  remained,  a  spirit  of  defiance 
perhaps  was  roused  by  restraint,  and  an  unusually  intemperate 
Christmas  ensued. 

Wine,  beer,  and  cider  may  or  may  not  be  injurious,  but  at 
all  events  they  are  not  so  injurious  as  ardent  spirits;  they 
stimulate  less  to  criminal  violence,  the  evil  against  which  in 
dealing  with  this  subject,  society  is  most  concerned  to  guard. 
A  natural  tendency  of  Prohibition,  however,  as  the  evidence 
cited  seems  to  show,  is  to  substitute  ardent  spirits,  which,  con- 
taining a  great  amount  of  alcohol  in  a  small  bulk,  are  more 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     337 

easily  smuggled,  for  the  lighter  drinks  of  which  the  bulk  is 
greater.  It  is  well  that  the  attention  of  philanthropy,  of 
practical  philanthropy  at  least,  should  be  specially  called 
to  this  point.  Not  only  does  Prohibition  appear  practically 
to  encourage  the  use  of  ardent  spirits ;  the  spirits  which  it 
encourages,  being  sold  by  the  lowest  dealers,  are  apt  to  be  of 
the  most  pernicious  kind;  sometimes  they  are  literally  poison. 

It  is  true  that  in  some  places  where  Prohibition  prevails  the 
liquor-shop  no  longer  invites  the  passer-by  with  open  doors. 
But  the  illicit  liquor-seller  is  probably  more  active  than  the 
licensed  publican  in  thrusting  his  temptation  upon  those  who  are 
most  likely  to  yield  to  it,  especially  on  the  young.  A  clandestine 
drinker  is  sure  to  be  a  deep  drinker.  He  is  sure  to  drink,  not 
with  his  meals,  but  in  the  specially  pernicious  form  of  drams. 
He  is  sure  to  drink  in  bad  company.  He  is  sure  also  to  con- 
tract sneaking  habits,  and  to  lose  respect  for  himself  as  well 
as  respect  for  the  law. 

Witness  after  witness  testifies  to  the  prevalence  of  perjury 
in  liquor-cases,  and  this  evidence  is  supported  by  that  of  judges 
and  magistrates  in  the  United  States  and  England.  The  peo- 
ple were  morally  dragooned  by  a  powerful  organisation  and 
strong  ecclesiastical  influence  into  voting  for  the  Act.  The 
pulpit  of  the  Methodist  Church,  which  is  very  powerful  in 
■  Canada  and  has  thoroughly  identified  itself  Avith  Prohibition, 
thundered  in  favour  of  the  measure,  and  the  Methodist  farmers 
obeyed.  But  no  pulpit-thunder  will  make  the  people  in  their 
hearts  believe  that  to  drink  or  sell  a  glass  of  beer  is  really 
criminal,  or  support  the  execution  of  the  law  as  if  they  did. 
Archdeacon  Farrar  himself,  in  his  controversy  with  the  late 
Baron  Bramwell,  repudiates  as  uncharitable  and  absurd  the 
doctrine  that  there  is  anything  morally  wrong  in  the  use  of 
fermented  liquor.  He  says  that  he  has  never  preached  absti- 
nence as  a  matter  of  duty,  even  to  confirmation  classes  or  to 
national  schools.  He  admits  that  moderate  drinking  is  a  per- 
fectly lawful  enjoyment,  and  that  multitudes  of  men  indulge 
in  it  who  are  wiser  and  better  than  he  is  himself.  Agreeing 
at  heart  with  this,  the  people,  though  they  have  voted  as  their 


338  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

preacher  bade  them,  cannot  bring  themselves  to  take  part  in 
ruining  a  neighbour,  sending  him  to  gaol,  and  perhaps  leaving 
his  vyife  and  children  destitute,  for  that  which  in  their  con- 
science they  do  not  regard  as  criminal.  They  refuse  to  back 
the  ministers  of  the  law.  When  forced  to  give  evidence  they 
prevaricate  and  too  often  commit  what  is  morally  perjury. 
The  Bruce  Herald  declared  that  the  Act  in  that  county, 
though  nominally  in  force,  was  "  dead  as  Julius  Caesar,"  add- 
ing that  the  idea  that  the  law  would  be  sustained  by  reverence 
for  authority  soon  vanished,  and  that  prosecutions  failed  from 
the  unwillingness  of  witnesses  to  give  evidence  against  the 
hotel-keepers,  who  had  public  sympathy  on  their  side,  the  peo- 
ple feeling  that  the  Act  sought  to  destroy  a  business  and  to 
confiscate  property  erected  under  the  sanction  of  previous  law. 
Have  we  not  in  the  history  of  the  poaching  bred  by  tyrannical 
game-laws  and  the  smuggling  bred  by  excessive  customs-duties, 
abundant  proof  of  the  danger  of  putting  the  moral  sense  of  the 
people  at  variance  with  the  law  ?  To  break  the  law  is  always 
wrong,  but  it  is  also  wrong  to  make  laws  which,  as  they  are 
unsupported  by  any  moral  obligation,  the  people  are  sure  to 
break. 

The  testimony  borne  by  municipal  councils  in  all  parts  of 
Ontario  to  the  fact  that  there  was  an  increase  of  drunkenness 
under  the  Act  was  not  invalidated  by  the  decrease,  in  some 
counties,  of  the  number  of  arrests  for  that  offence.  Under  the 
prohibitive  system  the  liquor-seller,  his  trade  being  illicit,  is 
afraid  to  call,  as  the  licensed  tavern-keeper  does,  for  the  inter- 
vention of  the  police.  He  does  his  best  to  conceal  the  drunk- 
ard whose  detection  would  be  the  betrayal  of  his  own  breach 
of  the  law. 

The  Prohibitionists  themselves  hardly  show  confidence  in 
their  own  moral  code.  They  do  not  propose  to  punish  a  man 
for  drinking  a  glass  of  ale,  though  the  drinking  and  the  sell- 
ing being  parts  of  the  same  transaction,  botli  must  be  criminal 
or  neither.  The  framers  of  the  Scott  Act  did  not  even  go  so  far 
as  to  make  the  manufacture  of  liquor  a  crime.  They  con- 
fined themselves  to  harassing  the  retail  trade,  as  though,  so 


PROIimiTION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     339 

long  as  the  drink  was  made,  it  could  fail  to  find  its  way 
through  some  channel  to  thirsty  lips. 

In  the  Province  of  Quebec  the  Scott  Act  has  been  adopted 
by  five  counties,  of  which  two  have  repealed  it.  In  the 
French  province  this  question,  like  all  other  public  questions, 
is  apt  to  become  one  of  race.  In  the  Maritime  Provinces  the 
Act  has  been  extensively  adopted,  and  only  in  the  cases  of 
two  cities  or  rather  large  towns  and  one  county  has  the  Act 
been  repealed.  But  the  organised  public  opposition,  indepen- 
dent of  the  liquor-interest,  which  in  Ontario  arrested  the  pro- 
gress of  the  Act  and  turned  back  the  tide,  has  hitherto  been 
wanting  in  the  Maritime  Provinces.  The  people  of  those  Prov- 
inces, moreover,  to  judge  from  their  behaviour  in  the  political 
sphere,  are  peculiarly  submissive  to  pressure  of  the  sort  which 
the  Prohibitionist  party  and  the  clergy  who  support  it  bring 
to  bear.  But  the  Act,  though  not  generally  repealed,  is 
described  as  practically  a  dead  letter  by  provincial  journals, 
which  call  for  its  repeal  on  that  account. 

The  writer  was  in  the  Korth-West  Territories,  where  the  law 
imposed  by  the  central  government,  under  pressure  of  the  Tem- 
perance vote,  was  Prohibition  qualified  by  a  power  of  giving 
permits  vested  in  the  Lieutenant-Governor.  He  was  assured, 
on  what  appeared  to  be  the  best  possible  authority,  that  the 
law  was  a  disastrous  failure,  that  anybody  could  get  liquor 
who  wanted  it,  and  that  the  only  fruits  of  the  system  were 
smuggling,  perjury,  secret  drinking,  and  deterioration  of  the 
liquor.  The  li([uor  is  sure  to  be  of  the  worst  quality,  because 
the  dealer  will  thus  indemnify  himself  for  the  risks  of  a  con- 
traband trade,  while  his  own  character  and  that  of  his  drink- 
ing-place  will  inevitably  be  low.  Attention  is  once  more 
called  to  this  feature  of  the  question,  and  to  the  tendency 
of  the  system  which  makes  the  trade  contraband  to  the  dis- 
placement of  the  lighter  drinks  by  ardent  spirits  Avhich  are 
easily  smuggled. 

In  the  Territories  so  bad  were  the  effects  of  the  prohibitory 
law  that  the  Territorial  Legislature  recently  ])assed  a  License 
Law,  which  went  into  effect  in  May,  1892.     The  evidence  given 


340  QUESTIONS  OF  THE    DAY. 

before  the  Canadian  Prohibition  Commission  later  in  that  year 
was  generally  favourable  to  it  compared,  with  the  prohibitory 
measure.  Amongst  the  witnesses  were  the  chief  officers  of  the 
North- West  Mounted  Police,  judges,  lawyers,  and  others,  and 
there  was  conclusive  testimony  to  the  large  amount  of  smug- 
gling and  to  the  manufacture  of  deleterious  liquors.  One  wit- 
ness testified  that  thousands  of  shipments  of  liquor  were  made 
into  the  Territory  in  kegs  or  packages  concealed  in  other  goods, 
often  in  a  car  of  bacon  or  a  bag  of  rice,  sugar,  or  nails.  Often, 
too,  liquor  came  in  bottles  of  preserves  or  pickles,  or  canned 
goods  or  temperance  drinks.  Sometimes  four  hundred  gallons 
of  liquor  at  once  were  conveyed  by  teams  hundreds  of  miles 
inland,  and  evaded  the  vigilance  of  the  officers.  The  supply 
of  liquor  was  irregular;  a  consignment  was  often  on  its 
arrival  surrounded  by  friends  of  the  consignee,  and  the  whole 
of  it  was  quickly  consumed.  This  led  to  a  great  amount  of 
drunkenness,  and,  in  the  dearth  of  liquor  which  followed,  to 
the  consumption  of  eau  de  Cologne,  pain-killer,  Florida  water, 
essences  of  various  kinds,  and  even  red  ink.  A  favourite  punch 
concocted  in  the  Territories  was  pain-killer,  Jamaica  ginger, 
strong  tea,  sugar,  and  molasses.  These  deleterious  compounds, 
witnesses  swore,  produced  a  number  of  deaths.  Their  effect, 
as  well  as  that  of  some  whiskeys  imported  into  the  Territories 
or  illicitly  manufactured  there,  was  stated  to  be  maddening. 
A  judge  said  that  of  the  only  two  cases,  among  forty  or  fifty 
criminal  cases,  due  to  the  abuse  of  liquor,  one,  a  case  of 
murder,  was  clearly  due  to  a  poisonous  com  pound  manufactured 
by  an  illicit  distiller  whose  only  appliances  were  some  lead  pipe 
and  some  barley.  The  compound  was  the  fruit  of  Prohibition. 
This  failure  of  Prohibition  is  notable,  for  though  the  country 
has  a  long  frontier,  the  risks  encountered  in  carrying  liquor 
far  into  the  interior  were  very  great,  the  Mounted  Police  being 
numerous  and  vigilant,  while  the  question  had  not,  as  in  other 
cases,  become  involved  with  politics. 

Besides  contempt  of  the  law  and  perjury  the  country  has 
been  filled  with  ill  blood.  Nothing  is  more  odious  or  poisons 
the  heart  of  the  community  more  than  the   employment  of 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     341 

spies  and  informers,  to  which  it  has  been  necessary  and  will 
always  be  necessary  for  Prohibitionism  to  resort.  Dickens 
holds  up  the  mirror  to  nature  in  his  description  of  the  Clay- 
poles  and  their  trade.  Men  who  have  been  imprisoned  and 
ruined  for  plying  a  trade  which  they  can  hardly  feel  to  be 
criminal,  as  only  the  other  day  they  were  holding  licenses  for 
it  from  the  State,  are  naturally  not  grateful  for  such  treat- 
ment. Their  vindictiveness  and  hatred  of  the  spies  has  led  to 
several  outrages,  and  once  or  twice  to  the  use  of  dynamite. 

To  force  the  sentiment  of  the  people  into  accordance  with 
the  law  is  the  more  difficult,  since  all  the  time  their  Church  is 
holding  up  for  their  imitation  a  model  of  character  which  is 
not  '' temperate"  in  the  Prohibitionist  sense  of  that  term.  In 
commenting  on  the  miracle  at  Cana,  Archdeacon  Farrar  con- 
trasts the  "  genial  innocence  of  Christ's  system "  with  the 
"crushing  asceticism  of  rival  systems."  By  way  of  reconcil- 
ing this  discrepancy  desperate  efforts  are  made  to  uphold  the 
astonishing  theory  that  the  oinos  of  the  Gospel  was  not  fer- 
mented wine  but  syrup.  The  ruler  of  the  feast  at  Cana,  it 
seems,  expressed  his  surprise  that  the  best  syrup  had  not  been 
produced  till  the  guests  had  well  drunk  ;  the  accusers  of  Christ 
in  calling  Him  a  winebibber  meant  only  that  he  was  a  syrup- 
drinker  :  it  was  on  syrup  that  the  Corinthians  got  drunk  at  the 
celebratioTi  of  the  Lord's  Supper:  Paul  advised  his  friend  to 
take  a  little  syrup  for  his  stomach's  sake  ;  and  the  same  Apostle 
enjoined  the  Church  in  electing  deacons  not  to  choose  those 
who  were  given  to  excess  in  syrup !  To  such  paltering  with 
what  every  one  educated  enough  to  be  a  clergyman  must  know 
to  be  the  truth,  we  rather  prefer  the  preacher  who  said  boldly 
that  if  Christ  were  again  to  come  on  earth  and  persisted  in 
celebrating  the  Eucharist  with  wine,  He  would  have  to  be 
excluded  from  His  own  Church.  To  drag  the  Gosj^el  into  this 
discussion  on  the  Prohibitionist  side  is  hopeless.  There  is  no 
more  of  fanaticism  than  there  is  of  formalism  in  that  volume. 
When  St.  Paul  bids  us  not  drink  wine  if  thereby  our  brother 
is  made  to  stumble,  he  couples  eating  meat  with  drinking  wine, 
showing  that  in  liis  opinion  both  in  themselves  are  innocent. 


342  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

The  Gospel  bids  us  have  regard  to  the  weakness  of  our  brother ; 
but  it  does  uot  bid  our  brother  be  weak  or  us  to  coimtenance 
his  v/eakness  by  unjust  and  unwise  legislation. 

The  effect  even  of  less  violent  and  hazardous  measures  of 
coercion  in  Canada  appears  to  have  been  pretty  much  the 
same.  The  supporters  of  the  Scott  Act  did  not  venture  to 
put  it  to  the  vote  in  Toronto,  but  finding  themselves  powerful 
in  the  City  Council,  they  proceeded  to  wage  a  war  of  extermi- 
nation on  the  taverns.  At  one  stroke  they  cut  off  seventy -five 
licenses.  They  were  warned  that  this  arbitrary  measure, 
while  it  might  ruin  the  tavern-keepers,  would  not  diminish  the 
demand  for  drink ;  that  while  there  was  a  demand  there  would 
be  a  supply,  and  that  the  tavern-keepers  whose  licenses  were 
withdrawn  would  not  starve  if  they  could  help  it,  but  would 
ply  an  illicit  trade.  The  result  was  a  large  increase  of  the 
number  of  cases  of  drunkenness  before  the  magistrate  and  an 
unusually  drunken  Christmas.  Nor  could  the  Prohibitionists 
find  any  way  of  parrying  the  natural  inference  better  than  an 
insinuation  that  drinking  had  been  promoted  by  the  powers  of 
darkness  for  the  special  purpose  of  discrediting  their  policy. 

It  may  be  argued  with  some  force  that  when  the  Scott  Act 
was  adopted  by  some  counties  and  not  by  others  the  moral 
perceptions  of  the  people  in  the  counties  that  did  adopt  it 
would  be  disturbed  by  the  vicinage  of  a  different  code.  But 
even  if  the  Prohibitionist  code  were  imposed  on  a  whole 
nation  the  difficulty,  if  diminished,  would  not  be  removed. 
To  make  an  Eleventh  Commandment  you  must  obtain  the 
concurrence  of  the  civilised  world,  intercourse  and  communi- 
cation between  all  the  parts  of  which  are  now  too  active  for  a 
sectional  morality.  Put  all  Canada  under  Prohibition,  and 
every  Canadian  who  visits  a  foreign  country  will  be  apt  to 
come  back  a  heretic,  and  to  propagate  his  heresy  on  his  return. 
Literature,  moreover,  from  Homer  to  Dickens  is  full  of  the 
other  view. 

The  results  of  coercive  legislation  in  the  United  States, 
wherever  the  experiment  has  been  tried,  seem  to  tally  with 
those  of  coercive  legislation  in  Canada.     Maine  is  the  "banner- 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     343 

State  "  of  Prohibition.  It  has  been  trying  the  system  for  over 
forty  years,  in  ore  than  time  enough  to  kill  the  liquor-traffic, 
if  the  liquor-traffic  was  to  be  killed.  Yet  of  Maine,  "Gail 
Hamilton,"  who  must  know  it  well,  said  in  the  North  Ameri- 
can Reimio:  "The  actual  result  is  that  liquor  is  sold  to  all 
who  wish  to  obtain  it  in  nearly  every  town  in  the  State.  En- 
forcement of  the  law  seems  to  have  little  effect.  For  the  past 
six  years  the  city  of  Bangor  has  practically  enjoyed  free  rum. 
In  more  than  one  hundred  places  liquor  is  sold  and  no  attempt 
has  been  made  to  enforce  the  law.  In  Bath,  Lewiston, 
Augusta,  and  other  cities  no  real  difficulty  is  experienced  in 
procuring  liquor.  In  Portland,  enforcement  of  the  law  has 
been  faithfully  attempted,  yet  the  liquor-traffic  flourishes  for 
all  classes  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  ...  In  a  journey 
last  summer  for  hundreds  of  miles  through  the  cities  and 
through  the  scattered  villages  and  hamlets  of  Maine,  the 
almost  universal  testimony  was  'you  get  liquor  enough  for 
bad  purposes  in  bad  places,  but  you  cannot  get  it  for  good 
purposes  in  good  places.'"  "What  works  against  Prohibi- 
tion," the  writer  adds,  "is  that  in  the  opinion  of  many  of 
the  most  earnest  total-abstinence  men,  the  original  Maine-Law 
State  after  thirty  years  of  Prohibition  is  no  more  a  Temper- 
ance State  than  it  was  before  Prohibition  was  introduced." 
It  appears  that  upwards  of  1000  people  in  the  State  paid 
United  States  retail  liquor-tax,  though  Archdeacon  Farrar 
was  informed  that  the  trade  had  been  completely  driven  out 
of  sight.  The  Maine  Prison  Pteport  for  1884  said:  "Intoxica- 
tion is  on  the  increase  ;  some  new  legislation  must  be  made 
if  it  is  to  be  lessened.  In  many  of  our  counties  Prohibition 
does  not  seem  to  affect  or  prevent  it."  In  the  city  of  Portland 
(population  .34,000)  in  1874  the  arrests  for  drunkenness  were 
2318.  But  dnmkenness  was  not  confined  to  the  cities.  Every 
one  of  the  sixteen  counties  furnished  its  quota.  The  number  of 
committals  for  drunkenness  for  one  year  was  1316  for  a  popu- 
lation of  648,000,  while  in  Canada,  an  area  at  that  time  not 
unilcr  tli(^  Scott  Act,  with  a  ])0])ulati()n  of  661,000,  and  a  town 
population  as  large  as  that  in  Maine,  showed  only  593  com- 


344  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

niittals,  less  than  half  the  number  of  those  in  the  model  State 
of  Prohibition.  General  Neal  Dow  himself,  upbraiding  his 
former  party  for  its  slackness  in  the  cause,  complained  of  the 
number  of  low  drinking-places  infesting  the  cities  of  Maine. 
The  New  York  Sim  after  investigation  carried  on  through 
its  correspondent,  said :  "  The  actual  state  of  affairs  in  Maine 
is  perfectly  well  understood  by  every  Maine  man  with  eyes 
in  his  head,  and  by  every  observant  visitor  to  Maine.  In 
no  part  of  the  world  is  the  spectacle  of  drunken  men  reel- 
ing along  the  streets  more  common  than  in  the  cities  and 
larger  towns  of  Maine.  Nowhere  in  the  world  is  the  aver- 
age quality  of  the  liquor  sold  so  bad,  and  consequently  so 
dangerous  to  the  health  of  the  consumer  and  the  peace  of  the 
public.  The  facilities  for  obtaining  liquor  vary  in  different 
parts  of  the  State,  from  the  cities  where  fancy-drinks  are 
openly  compounded  and  sold  over  rosewood  bars,  to  the  places 
where  it  is  dispensed  by  the  swig  from  flat  bottles  carried 
around  in  the  breeches  pockets  of  perambulating  dealers. 
But  liquor,  good  or  bad,  can  be  bought  anywhere."  Perjury, 
the  Sun  correspondent  also  stated,  as  usual,  was  rife.  The 
most  recent  evidence  is  to  the  same  effect.  In  the  cities  of 
Maine,  though  the  law  has  been  forty-six  times  amended  to 
sharpen  its  teeth,  liquor,  generally  of  a  bad  kind,  is  freely 
though  clandestinely  sold.  "Pocket  peddling"  is  rife  and 
presses  the  temptation  on  the  young.  The  city  of  Bangor  has 
openly  taken  itself  out  of  the  law,  and  established  a  liquor 
system  of  its  own.  In  Portland  the  city  government  sells 
liquor  nominally  for  medicine,  but  really  also  as  a  beverage, 
and  the  agency  is  a  scene  of  falsehood,  jobbery,  and  corruption. 
The  corruption  of  city  officers  is  an  almost  inevitable  and  a 
serious  consequence  of  the  system.  Some  of  those  who  have 
administered  the  law  in  Maine  are  among  the  strongest  advo- 
cates of  repeal  and  of  a  return  to  the  license. system.  They 
tried  to  give  effect  to  the  law.  They  fine,  they  imprison,  they 
perhaps  ruin  one  set  of  liquor  dealers,  and  the  only  result  is 
that  a  worse  set  succeeds. 

Nor  has  Maine  fulfilled  the  golden  promises  held  out  by 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     345 

P^rohibition  of  immunity  from  crime  and  enhanced  prosperity. 
Though  the  population  of  the  State  has  been  stationary,  the 
statistics  of  crime  have  increased.  In  1873  the  number  of  com- 
mittals to  gaol  was  1548  ;  in  1884  it  was  3672.  The  pauper  rate 
of  the  cities  was  large  compared  with  that  in  other  States.  More 
recent  statistics  seem  not  much  to  alter  the  case.  All  statistics 
of  this  kind  may  require  qualification  on  account  of  changes  in 
population  or  trade.  But  Prohibition  at  all  events  cannot  be 
said  to  have  put  an  end  to  crime  or  pauperism  in  Maine.  If 
that  State  has  advanced  socially,  or  morally,  or  economically, 
it  has  not  advanced  farther  than  other  States  similar  to  it  in 
general  respects  but  without  a  prohibitive  law.  Prohibition  has 
been  the  platform  of  one  of  the  political  parties  ;  otherwise  it 
seems  not  unlikely  that  there  might  have  been  a  repeal  of  the 
law  and  a  return  to  the  license  system.  Entanglement  of  a 
social  and  moral  question  with  the  tactics  and  hypocrisy  of 
a  political  party  is  an  evil  attendant  of  Prohibition.  The 
integrity  even  of  churches  is  in  some  peril.  "The  Methodists," 
said  General  Neal  Dow,  "  are  a  very  great  body  of  religionists 
in  this  country,  and  always  at  their  conventions  they  form  very 
grand  resolutions  against  the  liquor  traffic.  There  is  hardly 
any  language  in  the  English  tongue  that  they  do  not  use  against 
the  liquor  traffic.  Nice  men  they  are  and  educated  men  too, 
but  after  that  they  go  directly  round  and  vote  for  rum.  The 
Presbyterians  all  do  the  same  thing,  and  the  Congregationalists 
will  do  the  same.  When  I  have  occasion  to  speak  to  them  I 
say,  '  I  would  rather  you  would  resolve  against  temperance  and 
pray  against  temperance,  and  then  vote  against  rum,  rather 
than  you  would  pray  and  resolve  against  intemperance  and 
then  go  and  vote  for  rum.'  " 

Vermont  has  also  been  trying  Prohibition  for  more  than  forty 
years.  Here  the  city  population  is  comparatively  small,  so 
that  the  system  has  the  fairest  chance ;  while  the  legislature, 
under  the  pressure  of  the  "  Temperance  vote,"  has  piled  one 
repressive  enactment  upon  another,  heaped  up  penalties,  and 
at  last  given  the  police  power  to  enter  any  house  without 
a  warrant.     The  result  after  thirty  years  was  reported  by  Mr. 


346  QUESTIONS   OF   'J  HE   DAY. 

Edward  Johnson  in  the  Pojyular  Science  Monthly  for  May, 
1884.  He  states  that  ''for  all  practical  })urposes  the  law  is 
an  absolute  dead  letter."  There  were  at  the  time  of  his 
writing  in  the  State  446  places  where  liquor  was  sold,  and 
though  the  population  was  well-nigh  stationary  there  was  a 
marked  increase  in  their  number.  "  A  large  proportion  of  the 
dram-shops  are  on  the  principal  streets,  and  there  is  no  con- 
cealment of  the  illegal  traffic.  Spasmodic  attempts  to  enforce 
the  law  are  made  in  the  larger  places,  but  are  utterly  futile. 
Of  enforcing  the  law,  as  the  laws  against  burglary  and  larceny 
are  enforced,  nobody  dreams  for  a  moment."  "Such,"  says 
Mr.  Johnson, "  is  the  unsatisfactory  result  of  Vermont's  thirty 
years'  experience  of  the  Prohibitory  liquor-laws."  "  One 
might,"  he  adds,  "go  still  further  and  speak  of  the  perjury 
and  subornation  of  perjury  for  which  the  law  is  in  a  sense 
responsible,  of  the  disregard  and  contempt  of  all  law  which 
the  operation  of  this  law  tends  to  foster  and  encourage,  and 
of  cognate  matters  which  will  occur  to  the  reflective  reader; 
but  perhaps  enough  has  been  said  in  showing  the  failure  of  the 
law  to  accomplish  the  object  for  which  it  was  enacted."  No 
attempt,  so  far  as  we  know,  has  been  made  to  controvert  Mr. 
Johnson's  statements,  or  to  refute  the  conclusion  which  he 
draws  from  them,  and  which  is  that  men  cannot  be  dragooned 
into  virtue  ;  that  is,  not  by  State  interference  with  practices 
not  in  themselves  criminal,  but  only  by  State  interference 
with  positive  crime. 

Massachusetts  also  for  a  series  of  years  tried  Prohibition. 
The  result  is  embodied  in  the  Report  of  a  joint  committee  of 
both  Houses  of  the  Legislature  (1867),  which  ought  to  be  in 
the  hands  of  all  those  who  wish  to  be  guided  by  experience 
in  this  matter.  That  Report,  founded  on  the  best  evidence, 
states  that  the  law,  if  by  its  operation  it  diminishes  the  num- 
ber of  open  places  of  drinking,  does  so  only  to  multiply  the 
secret  places,  that  more  liquor  and  worse  liquor  was  drunk, 
that  drunkenness  had  increased  almost  in  direct  ratio  to  the 
closing  of  public  places  of  sale,  and  that  there  was  more  of  it 
in  Boston  than  there  had  been  at  any  previous  time  in  the 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     347 

history  of  the  city.  "  Tlie  mere  fact,"  says  the  Eeport  —  in 
words  to  Avhich  we  would  call  special  attention  —  "the  mere 
fact  that  the  law  seeks  to  prevent  them  from  drinking  rouses 
the  determination  to  drink  in  many.  The  fact  that  the  place 
is  secret  takes  away  the  restraint  which,  in  more  public  and 
respectable  places,  would  keep  them  within  temperate  bounds. 
The  fact  that  the  business  is  contraband  and  liable  to  inter- 
ruption, and  that  its  gains  are  hazardous,  tends  to  drive  honest 
men  from  it  and  to  leave  it  under  the  control  of  dishonest 
men,  who  will  not  scruple  to  poison  the  community  with  vile 
adulteration."  In  conclusion,  the  Eeport  submits  that  so  long 
as  there  is  a  demand  for  liquor  there  will  be  a  supply,  licensed 
or  illicit,  and  recommends  regulated  freedom  as  the  best 
policy. 

In  Iowa  again  Prohibition  has  been  on  its  trial.  A  corre- 
spondent of  Harper's  Weekly,  recommended  as  thoroughly 
trustworthy  by  a  journal  itself  very  careful  of  its  statements, 
reported  that  Prohibition  in  the  cities  of  Iowa  meant  free 
liquor.  A  correspondent  of  the  New  York  Nation  testi- 
fied to  much  the  same  effect,  adding  that  tlie  local  organ  of 
Prohibition  itself  admitted  the  failure.  Dr.  Dio  Lewis,  the 
Cato  of  dietists,  said  that  he  had  touched  at  several  of  the 
large  cities  on  a  tour  to  the  Kocky  Mountains,  and  among 
other  things  had  inquired  into  the  practical  benefits  rea})ed 
from  Prohibition.  In  places  where  he  had  been  assured  that 
drink  could  not  be  had  for  love  or  money  he  had  seen  drunk- 
ards reeling  in  the  streets.  In  Iowa  City,  where  Prohibition 
was  supposed  to  be  enforced,  he  saw  from  seventy-five  to  a 
hundred  kegs  of  beer  delivered  on  trucks  from  a  brewery. 
His  practical  conclusion  was  tliat  Prohibition  was  a  Avild 
theory;  "that  as  a  preventative  it  had  not  met  the  claims  of 
its  supporters,  and  as  an  aid  to  the  cause  of  Temperance  was  a 
failure."  Dubuque  is  a  city  of  about  35,000  inhabitants.  Its 
business  Directory  comprises  two  breweries,  six  bottlers, 
thirty-five  hotels,  ten  wholesale  liquor  places,  and  a  hundred 
and  eighty-one  saloons.  The  annual  expense  to  the  liquor- 
seller  in  the  way  of  "  license  "  is  small :  he  pays  tlie  United 


348  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

States  Government  tax  of  $25,  and  twice  a  year  is  formally 
prosecuted  and  fined  $  50  by  tlie  municipality.  Druggist 
shops  are  turned  into  liquor  shops  with  a  few  drugs  in  the 
window. 

In  Kansas,  the  State  of  Governor  St.  John,  the  chosen  chief 
of  Prohibitionism,  where  the  most  stringent  Prohibition  had 
been  enacted,  the  result,  according  to  Dr.  Gardner,  was  that 
the  drug-stores  were  little  more  than  rum-shops,  and  that  their 
number  was  astonishing.  In  one  town  of  four  thousand 
people,  fifteen  of  them  were  counted  on  the  main  street. 
Leavenworth,  with  a  population  of  23,000,  has  a  hundred  and 
seventy-five  places  where  liquor  is  sold.  In  Kansas  City  the 
police  collected  in  1882  $45,000  in  fines  for  illegal  sale  of 
liquor.  There  is  a  general  tendency  to  convert  Prohibition, 
where  it  prevails,  practically  into  license  by  taking  the  fees 
under  the  guise  of  fines.  In  Tongawoxie,  a  small  town  in 
Kansas  where  there  was  no  saloon  before  Prohibition,  there 
are  three  or  four  now.  This  is  against  the  theory  that  Prohibi- 
tion works  Avell  in  small  places  though  in  large  cities  it  works 
ill.  At  Topeka  in  Kansas  there  are  no  saloons.  But  there 
were  none  when  Prohibition  was  introduced,  popular  feeling 
being  against  them.  A  proof  that  it  is  popular  feeling  that  is 
strong,  not  proliibitive  law.  The  Canadian  Commission,  how- 
ever, has  been  making  careful  inquiry  in  Kansas  and  the 
results  of  its  investigations  will  soon  appear. 

It  seems  that  experience  has  always  pointed  the  same  way. 
Under  James  I.  and  Charles  I.  a  series  of  Acts  was  passed  to 
suppress  tippling,  the  effect  of  which  evidently  was  only  to 
suppress  the  respectability  of  the  tavern-keepers,  who  at  last 
were  found  to  be  unable  to  pay  fines,  so  that  Parliament  had 
to  resort  to  flogging  as  a  penalty.  The  failure  is  the  more 
significant  because  the  Executive  was  so  strong,  and  was  sure 
to  be  backed  in  this  case  by  the  Puritan  Parliament.  The 
Gin  Act  of  George  II.  was  found  to  have  made  bad  worse,  and 
had  to  be  repealed.  Even  in  Puritan  Connecticut,  where  the 
pressure  of  ecclesiastical  authority  was  tremendous,  the  his- 
torian tells  us  that  "  rules  against  excess  in  drinking  and  in 


TKoniP.ITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     ;J49 

apparel  were  attempted,  with  tlie  usual  want  of  success." 
Heaven  appears  in  no  place  or  time  to  have  prospered  what 
we  are  told  is  its  own  cause. 

The  difficulty  of  even  enforcing  vaccination  in  places  where  it 
is  widely  resisted,  shows  how  arduous  a  task  is  coercive  legisla- 
tion when  it  is  not  backed  by  popular  conviction,  which,  if  it 
is  in  favour  of  the  principle,  will  produce  the  effect  without 
coercive  law. 

About  ten  years  ago,  a  mass  meeting  of  the  friends  of 
Temperance,  connected  with  the  Church  Temperance  Society, 
was  held  at  Chickering  Hall,  at  New  York.  The  hall  was 
full  to  overflowing;  speeches  were  made  by  Mr.  Warner  Miller, 
Rev.  Dr.  Greer,  the  Bishop  of  Delaware,  INIr.  Seth  Low,  and 
Father  Osborne.  The  sense  of  the  meeting  was  evidently 
in  favour  of  high  license,  as  practically  the  best  safeguard 
against  intemperance.  Dr.  Greer  dwelt  on  the  failure  of 
Prohibition  in  Rhode  Island,  declaring  that  "the  State  was 
not  less  wicked  as  a  Prohibition  State  than  as  a  low-license 
State ;  that  the  tactics  to  which  reputable  citizens  resorted  to 
evade  the  law  created  a  spirit  of  lawlessness ;  and  that,  with 
regard  to  the  city  of  Providence,  numerous  clubs  had  sprung 
up  there,  where  the  citizens  could  drink  their  fill  and  be  shel- 
tered from  publicity  or  arrest." 

By  voluntary  associations,  such  as  Teetotal  societies  and  the 
Bands  of  Hope,  and  still  more  by  the  general  advance  of 
morality,  of  intelligence,  and  above  all  of  medical  science, 
great  improvement  has  been  made  in  Canada  as  it  has  else- 
where. Old  inhabitants  tell  you  that  forty  or  fifty  years  ago 
drunkenness  was  very  common  among  our  farmers,  and  that 
many  of  them  regularly  went  home  from  market  the  worse 
for  liquor.  ISTow  the  Canadian  farmers  are  a  very  sober  race. 
There  is  a  certain  amount  of  drunkenness,  as  well  as  of  other 
vices,  in  our  cities,  but  a  large  proportion  of  the  cases  are 
tliose  of  recent  immigrants.  The  writer  would  be  inclined  to 
say,  judging  from  outward  appearances,  that  Toronto,  com- 
pared with  other  cities  in  which  he  has  lived,  is  sober  as  well 
as  orderly.     It  has  indeed  been  proclaimed  from  the  Prohibi- 


350  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

tion  platform  that  there  are  seven,  or  even  ten,  thousand 
deaths  from  drinking  in  the  Dominion  every  year.  This  would 
be  from  a  third  to  one-half  of  the  total  number  of  male  adult 
deaths.  About  the  time  when  tliis  announcement  was  made, 
the  Mortuary  Statistics  gave  the  total  number  of  deaths  from 
alcoholic  causes  in  eight  principal  cities  and  towns  in  one 
month  as  two.  In  England  likewise,  the  evil  habit  of  drink- 
ing has  been  greatly  reduced,  without  any  restrictive  laws 
or  restraint  of  any  kind,  mainly  by  the  increasing  influ- 
ence of  medical  science,  and  in  connection  with  the  general 
progress  of  hygienic  reform.  It  should  be  observed  that 
voluntary  effort  will  be  weakened  by  coercive  legislation. 
Prohibition,  if  universally  enforced,  would  break  up  Teetotal 
fraternities  and  Bands  of  Hope;  and  unless  it  was  itself 
successful  in  extirpating  the  desire  for  drink,  that  desire 
might  any  day  break  out  again  on  a  large  scale,  and  find  no 
organisation  on  foot  to  resist  its  sway. 

Before  the  British  Parliament  consents  to  extreme  legisla- 
tion, let  it  at  all  events  appoint  a  Commission  of  Inquiry  to 
report  to  it  on  the  results  of  prohibitory  legislation  in  Canada 
and  the  United  States.  The  Commissioners,  will  probably 
find  that  impartial  opinion  on  the  continent  pronounces  Pro- 
hibition a  failure,  and  inclines  decidedly  in  favour  of  the 
plan  of  high  licenses  with  stringent  regulation.  That  strin- 
gent and  exceptional  legislation  is  required  for  the  liquor- 
traffic  nobody  doubts.  Nor  do  the  respectable  members  of 
the  trade  deprecate  it ;  for  nothing  can  be  less  conducive 
to  their  interest  than  drunkenness  and  disorder  on  their 
premises.  It  is  quite  possible  that  a  stricter  code  may  be 
necessary  in  England  than  is  necessary  in  the  United  States 
or  Canada.  There  is  nothing,  thank  Heaven,  on  the  American 
continent  like  the  gin-palaces  of  London. 

A  license  fee  as  high  as  a  thousand  dollars  (200Z.)  has  been 
proposed,  and  the  prospect  of  revenue  is  tempting  to  the 
municipalities.  But  if  the  system  is  overstrained  its  effect 
will  practically  be  the  same  as  Prohibition ;  it  will  call  into 
existence   in  towns  and  cities  an  illicit  trade,  which  of  all 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     n.Jl 

results  is  the  worst.  To  diminish  the  demand  for  liquors  by- 
moral  agencies  has  been  shown  to  be  practicable,  both  in 
Canada  and  among  the  upper  classes  in  England  ;  to  diminish 
the  supply  without  diminishing  the  demand  seems  to  be  im- 
practicable, resort  to  what  expedients  you  will. 

It  is  as  needless  to  dilate  on  the  evils  of  intemperance  as  it 
is  to  dilate  on  the  evils  of  small-pox.  The  only  question  is 
whether  prohibitive  legislation  cures  or  rather  aggravates  and 
propagates  the  disease.  But  the  advocates  of  coercion  have 
surely  overstated  the  connection  between  drinking  and  crime. 
From  their  language  it  might  be  supposed  that  if  we  could 
only  stamp  out  drinking,  crimes  of  all  kinds  would  cease,  our 
gaols  would  stand  empty,  and  we  should  be  at  liberty  to  dis- 
band the  police.  If  it  were  so,  no  measures,  provided  they 
were  effective,  could  be  too  strong.  But  can  we  believe  that 
cruelty,  lust,  covetousness,  vindictiveness,  malice,  and  the 
other  evil  tendencies  of  human  nature  in  which  crime  has  its 
source,  are  all  the  offspring  of  drink,  and  that  with  drink  they 
would  depart  ?  Do  they  not  manifest  themselves,  in  germ  at 
least,  in  children  whose  lips  have  never  touched  the  glass  ? 
Among  the  poorer  classes  seasons  of  distress  are  seasons  of 
crime,  though  the  power  of  buying  liquor  is  diminished.  Is 
there  no  crime  in  Mahomedan  countries,  which  keep  the 
Prophet's  law  ?  Is  there  none  in  Spain,  the  people  of  which 
are  remarkable  for  their  temperance  ?  It  is  natural  that  the 
criminal  classes  should  also  be  given  to  drink,  as  they  are  to 
gross  sensuality  of  other  kinds;  but  it  does  not  follow  *that 
their  addiction  to  drink  is  the  sole,  or  even  the  principal, 
source  of  their  crime.  Prisoners,  too,  are  apt  to  plead  drink 
in  extenuation  of  their  offences,  especially  since  they  know 
tliat  pliilanthropy  will  liail  tlieir  plea.  A  remarkable  arti- 
cle on  diet  appeared  in  1885  from  the  pen  of  Sir  Henry 
Thompson,  in  which  he  avowed  his  l)elief  that  not  only  the 
bodily  but  the  moral  evil  arising  from  intemperance  in  eating 
was  as  groat  as  that  arising  from  intemperance  in  drink. 
Certainly,  we  should  not  look  for  more  malevolence  in  a 
drinker  of  any  but  the  worst  whiskey  or  rum  than  in  one  who, 


352  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

like  too  many  people  in  America,  over-eats  himself  daily  with 
fat  and  ill-boiled  pork,  or  beefsteak  cooked  in  the  deadly  frying- 
pan,  as  well  as  with  half-baked  bread  and  greasy  pie,  washing 
down  the  whole  with  copious  draughts  of  the  most  abominable 
green  tea.     The  Maine  Prison  Report  for  1884  says  :  "  Intem- 
perance is  not  a  cause  of  crime;  it  is  a  crime  more  against 
society  and  against  the  family  than  against  the  State."     The 
words  are  a  little  ambiguous,  but  they  certainly  do  not  mean 
that  intemperance  is  the  sole  source  of  crime.     The  warden  of 
the  Maine  State  prison,  reviewing  the  declarations  made  of 
each  convict  between  the  years  1880  and  1887,  found  that 
of  375  convicts  194  declared  that  they  used  no  liquor,  163 
that  they  used  some  liquor,  and  88  that  they  were  intemperate. 
Whether  we  or  any  of  us  ought  entirely  to  renounce  alcohol 
it  is  for  science  to  determine.     If  science  pronounces  that  we 
ought,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  growing  intelligence 
of  humanity  will  gradually  conform  to  the  decision,  as  it  is 
already  conforming  to  the  decision  of  science  by  other  changes 
of  habit.     But  one  can  hardly  help  thinking  that  even  with 
regard   to  the  physical  effects  of   alcohol   there  has,   at   all 
events,  been  a  good  deal  of  exaggeration  on  the  "  Temperance  " 
platform.      The  sort  of  spirits   to  which  Prohibition  drives 
people,  as  we  have  seen,  is  poison  indeed.     But  surely  it  is 
only  in  a  metaphorical  sense  that  the  name  can  be  applied  to 
liquors    which   a  man  has  drunk  through   a   life   of   eighty, 
ninety,  even  a  hundred   years.     In  Manitoba  there  are  two 
bodies  of  Mennonites,  of  which  one  drinks  spirits  or  fermented 
liquors,  while  the  other  abstains  ;    and  a  person  who  has  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  the  Mennonites,  and  whose  evidence  is 
to  be  trusted,  told  the  writer  that  the  section  which  drinks 
is   rather   superior   in    progressive  energy  to   the  section  of 
abstainers.      No   part   of   our    Canadian   pojmlation  is   more 
industrious  or  worthier  than  tlie  Germans  of  Waterloo  County, 
Ontario,  who,  like  all  Germans,  drink  beer.     That  alcohol  does 
not  nourish,  supposing  it  to  be  true,  is  not  much  to  the  pur- 
pose.    If  alcohol  does  not  nourish,  it  exhilarates.     Tea,  which 
some  Prohibitionists  drink  in  floods,  and  on  which  they  spend 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     353 

as  much  money  as  others  do  in  beer,  does  not  nourish,  but  it 
soothes.  Possibly  the  exhilaration  produced  by  wine  may 
sometimes  have  been  a  necessary  antidote  to  melancholy,  which 
would  otherwise  prey  fatally  on  the  mind.  The  Psalmist,  who 
praised  wine  as  making  glad  the  heart  of  man,  though  he  lived 
before  science,  may  have  spoken  with  the  voice  of  Nature. 
But  let  medical  science  decide  ;  to  her,  not  to  the  religious 
or  political  platform,  the  question  belongs. 

The  Temperance  platform  has  also  beyond  doubt  grossly 
exaggerated  the  effect  of  moderate  drinking  in  tempting  on- 
ward to  excess.  To  maintain  that  a  man  who  is  in  the  habit 
of  taking  daily  a  glass  of  wine  or  beer  must  inevitably  contract 
a  craving  which  will  lead  to  his  becoming  a  drunkard,  is  ne- 
cessary, no  doubt,  for  the  justification  of  those  who  advocate 
indiscriminate  repression ;  but  nothing  can  be  more  flagrantly 
at  variance  Avith  obvious  facts.  An  ordinary  English  gentle- 
man takes  a  glass  of  wine  daily  at  dinner  without  feeling  any 
more  tempted  to  swallow  the  whole  contents  of  the  decanter 
than  he  is  to  swallow  the  whole  contents  of  the  mustard-pot 
from  which  he  takes  a  spoonful  with  his  beef.  A  man  may 
play  a  game  of  cribbage  with  his  wife  without  becoming  a 
gambler.  If  Johnson  found  abstinence  easier  than  temper- 
ance, it  was  because  he  had  once  been  intemperate.  He  kncAv 
that  his  own  case  was  peculiar.  To  most  men,  as  they  require 
physical  enjoyment  of  some  kind,  temperance  is  easier  than 
abstinence.  The  Spaniards  regularly  drink  wine,  yet  Croker, 
in  his  "  Travels  in  Spain,"  says,  "The  habitual  temperance  of 
these  people  is  really  astonishing ;  I  never  saw  a  Spaniard 
drink  a  second  glass  of  wine."  Another  English  tourist  says, 
"  In  all  our  wanderings  through  town  and  country,  along  the 
highways  and  byways  of  the  land  from  Bayonne  to  Gibraltar, 
we  never  saw  more  than  four  men  who  were  the  least  intoxi- 
cated." Mr.  Bryant,  the  American  author,  has  confirmed  this 
account.  A  clerical  advocate  of  our  Scott  Act  once  said 
that  he  would  no  more  think  of  putting  liquor  within  reach  of 
the  people,  tlian  of  putting  a  knife  within  reach  of  a  baby. 
Supposing  a  glass  of  ale  to  be  a  knife,  the  reverend  gentleman's 

2a 


354  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

fello vv -citizens  are  not  babies.  Among  the  extreme  advocates 
of  coercion  are,  it  is  believed,  men  who  have  themselves  been 
given  to  drink,  and  who  cannot  understand  the  existence  of 
self-control. 

From  communities  vexed  by  arbitrary  legislation  those  who 
rebel  against  arbitrary  legislation,  or  do  not  wish  to  have  their 
tastes  and  habits  regulated  by  a  tyrannical  majority,  will 
depart.  It  seems  that  the  Germans,  excellent  settlers,  but 
unwilling  to  give  up  their  lager  beer,  have  been  driven  from 
Maine.  Against  lager  beer  as  well  as  cider  and  other  liglit 
drinks  Prohibition,  as  has  already  been  said,  discriminates  ; 
their  bulk  in  proportion  to  the  alcohol  making  them  unsuitable 
for  contraband  sale. 

The  taste  for  fermented  liquors,  if  not  congenital,  seems  to 
be  immemorial  and  almost  universal.  Its  traces  appear  in  all 
the  mythologies,  Hindu,  Hellenic,  Koman,  and  Scandinavian. 
Probably  the  use  of  such  liquors  is  coeval  with  cookery,  which 
also  has  been  the  source  of  much  evil  as  well  as  of  much 
pleasure  to  mankind.  It  is  very  likely  that  a  great  change  in 
human  diet,  as  well  as  in  human  beliefs  and  institutions,  is 
coming ;  but  it  is  not  likely  that  this  change  will  come  sud- 
denly, or  that  diet,  being  complex,  will  undergo  a  revolution 
in  one  of  its  elements  without  a  corresponding  revolution  in 
the  rest.  Vegetarianism  has  many  advocates,  and  there  are 
symptoms  of  gradual  progress  in  that  direction  since  the  days 
in  which  a  Homeric  hero  devoured  a  whole  joint  of  meat  and 
the  bard  sang  of  the  work  of  the  shambles  with  as  much  gusto 
as  he  sang  of  the  harvest  and  the  vintage.  It  is  certain  that 
most  people  eat  too  much  meat  and  are  the  worse  for  it,  though 
it  has  not  yet  been  proposed  on  that  account  to  shut  up  the 
butchers'  shops  and  send  the  butchers  to  gaol.  Fermented 
drinks  may  be  discarded  and  cookery  with  them ;  a  refined 
and  intellectual  world  may  be  content  to  sustain  its  grosser 
part  with  bread  and  water  from  the  spring;  and  our  Christmas 
cheer  may  be  remembered  only  as  the  habit  of  primeval  sav- 
ages with  wonder  and  disgust.  But  in  questions  of  diet,  as 
has  already  been  said,  it    is  for  medical  science,  not  for  the 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     .']r)5 

sentiment  of  the  platform  or  for  religious  enthusiasm,  to 
decide. 

We  have  seen  how  in  Vermont,  Prohibitionism,  exasperated 
by  its  inevitable  failure,  heaped  up  penal  enactments,  and 
at  last  invaded  the  most  sacred  liberties  of  the  citizen  and  the 
sanctuary  of  his  home.  It  is  the  tendency  of  all  tyranny, 
"whether  it  be  that  of  a  sultan,  a  crowd,  a  sect,  or  a  party  of 
zealots,  w^hen  it  finds  itself  baffled,  to  pile  on  fresh  severities 
instead  of  reconsidering  the  wisdom  of  its  own  policy.  Pro- 
hibitive legislation  in  Canada  has  not  failed  to  betray  the  same 
arbitrary  spirit.  There  is  a  clause  in  the  Scott  Act  (sec.  12) 
setting  aside  the  common  legal  safeguards  of  innocence.  It 
provides  "that  it  shall  not  be  necessary  for  the  informer  to 
depose  to  the  fact  of  the  sale  as  within  his  own  personal  or 
certain  knowledge,  but  the  magistrate,  so  soon  as  it  appears 
to  him  that  the  circumstances  in  evidence  sufficiently  establish 
the  infraction  of  the  law,  shall  put  the  defendant  on  his  de- 
fence, and  in  default  of  his  rebuttal  of  such  evidence  shall 
convict  him  accordingly,"  —  convict  him,  in  short,  and  send 
him  to  prison  on  hearsay,  if  in  the  opinion  of  the  magistrate, 
who  may  be  a  strong  partisan,  he  fails  to  prove  his  innocence. 
There  is  a  clause  (122)  requiring  a  man  when  interrogated 
respecting  previous  convictions  to  criminate  himself,  Avhich 
seems  intended  for  the  very  purpose  of  breeding  mendacity. 
There  is  a  clause  (123)  compelling  husband  and  wife  to  give 
evidence  against  each  other.  When  the  wife  has  sent  the 
husband  to  prison,  what  will  the  wedlock  of  that  pair  thence- 
forth be  ?  Which  of  the  two  is  the  greater  sin,  to  refuse  to 
give  evidence  under  the  Scott  Act,  or  to  break  the  marriage 
vow,  which  bids  husband  and  wife  to  cherish  and  protect  each 
other  ?  There  is  no  appeal  on  the  merits  from  the  arbitrary 
decision  of  the  magistrate,  and  zealots  have  not  been  ashamed 
to  demand  in  the  plainest  terms  the  appointment  of  partisans 
to  the  bench.  It  never  occurs  to  them  to  consider  whether 
intemperance  itself  is  a  worse  vice  than  injustice. 

The  treatment  of  the  hotel  and  tavern  keepers  has  also  been 
utterly  iniquitous.     These  men  have  been  earning  their  bread 


350  QUESTIONS   OF    THE    DAY. 

by  a  trade  which,  when  they  entered  it,  was  not  only  licensed 
by  the  State,  but  deemed  by  everybody  perfectly  reputable ; 
and  therefore  when  their  trade  is  suddenly  suppressed  they 
are  apparently  entitled  to  the  same  compensation  which  any 
other  trade  in  the  same  circumstances  would  receive.  But 
compensation  is  inconvenient  and  might  fatally  weight  the 
measure.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  put  the  tavern-keeper 
out  of  the  pale  of  justice ;  and  to  do  this  pulpit  and  platform 
vie  with  each  other  in  kindling  popular  passion  against  him. 
He  is  represented  not  only  as  the  agent  of  a  traffic  to  which  it 
is  desirable  to  put  an  end,  but  as  a  criminal  and  the  worst  of 
criminals,  as  a  poisoner  and  a  murderer,  "steeped  to  the  elbow 
in  the  blood  of  civilisation."  Yet  money  made  by  the  poison 
which  he  sells  is  accepted  even  by  the  most  scrupulous  of  the 
Churches  for  its  religious  objects,  while  one  Church,  at  least, 
which  has  synodically  declared  for  total  Prohibition,  counts 
many  dealers  in  liquor  among  its  members. 

We  do  not  want  a  selfish  and  isolated  liberty.  Milton  him- 
self did  not  want  a  selfish  and  isolated  liberty ;  at  least,  he 
deliberately  sacrificed  his  eyesight  rather  than  decline  to  serve 
the  State.  But  after  all  this  struggling  against  the  paternal 
despotism  of  kings  and  popes,  we  do  want  a  reasonable  meas- 
ure of  freedom  and  of  self-development.  We  do  want  it  to  be 
understood,  as  the  general  rule,  that 

' '  All  restraint, 
Except  what  wisdom  lays  on  evil  men, 
Is  evil." 

In  case  of  extremity,  such  as  war  or  plague,  we  are  of 
course  ready  for  strong  measures,  provided  they  are  effectual. 
Not  only  war  or  plague,  but  any  peril  of  such  a  kind  that  the 
State  alone  can  deal  with  it,  warrants  the  intervention  of  the 
State.  Kobody  would  desire  to  set  arbitrary  and  pedantic 
bounds  to  the  common  action  of  the  community  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  whole.  It  might  be  necessary,  and  therefore 
lawful,  to  close  the  taverns  of  the  nation,  were  the  nation 
becoming  the  hopeless  slave  of  drunkenness,  as  it  might  be 


PROHIBITION  IN  CANADA  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES.     357 

necessary,  and  therefore  lawful,  to  close  tlie  race-courses  if 
the  nation  were  becoming  the  hopeless  slave  of  turf-gambling. 
But  in  an  ordinary  way  we  submit  that,  whether  iu  the  hands 
of  kings  or  majorities,  political  power  is  a  trust  held  for 
definite  purposes,  which  do  not  include  interference  with  your 
neighbour's  diet,  or  any  of  his  personal  habits,  any  more  than 
they  include  the  limitation  of  his  industry  or  the  confiscation 
of  his  property.  The  Prohibitionist  thinks  that  by  doing  a 
little  injustice  he  can  do  a  great  deal  of  good,  and  so  probably 
have  thought  all  tyrants  who  were  not  absolutely  insane. 

If  fanaticism  in  pursuit  of  the  one  cherished  object  tramples 
on  justice  and  natural  affection,  how  can  it  show  any  more 
regard  for  the  claims  of  political  duty  ?  A  citizen  is  mani- 
festly bound  in  the  exercise  of  his  suffrage  to  consider  all  the 
qualifications  of  the  candidate  and  all  the  interests  of  the 
State.  But  Temperance  organisations  in  Canada  have  formally 
resolved  to  exclude,  so  far  as  they  can,  from  all  public  offices, 
even  from  that  of  a  school-trustee,  any  one  who  Avill  not 
pledge  himself  to  the  support  of  their  policy.  .  There  may  be 
other  issues  before  the  country  of  the  most  vital  importance, 
but  they  are  all  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  one  end  of  the  sect. 
The  man  may  be  qualified  in  every  respect  to  be  a  legislator  : 
he  may  even  be  a  total  abstainer ;  but  if  he  does  not  believe  in 
prohibitory  legislation,  and  refuses  to  submit  his  conscience  to 
that  in  which  he  does  not  believe,  he  is  to  be  excluded  from 
public  life,  and  the  State  is  to  be  deprived  of  his  services. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  most  transparently  dishonest  submis- 
sion is  accepted  as  a  title  to  support.  A  fierce  electoral  con- 
test is  going  on  with  forces  evenly  balanced,  and  everybody  is 
in  doubt  about  the  result.  Suddenly  it  is  announced  that  one 
of  the  candidates  has  consented  to  take  the  Prohibition  pledge. 
There  is  no  concealment  as  to  his  motive;  but  he  gets  the 
Prohibitionist  vote,  and  by  its  help  rides  in  over  the  head 
of  his  more  scrupulous  rival,  while  eminent  Christians  and 
religious  journals  applaud  a  triumph  gained  over  public 
morality  by  fraud  and  lying.  It  is  needless  to  say  that 
l*rohibitionism  becomes  a  marketable  commodity  among  poll- 


358  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

ticians,  and  furnishes  the  ladder  by  which  knavery  olinibs  to 
the  mark  of  its  ambition.  It  is  now,  perhaps,  alter  Jiisli  clan-  ^ 
ship,  the  most  noxious  of  the  sectional  organisations,  the 
number  of  which  is  always  on  the  increase,  and  Avhich  are 
destroying  the  character  of  the  citizen,  and  rendering  elective 
government  impossible  by  treating  the  State  as  an  oyster 
to  be  opened  with  the  knife  of  their  vote  for  their  own  par- 
ticular end. 

Once  more  then,  and  with  increased  emphasis,  let  us  sug- 
gest that  before  the  British  Parliament  commits  itself  to 
prohibitive  legislation  it  should  send  a  Commission  of  Inquiry 
to  the  United  States  and  Canada,  or  at  least  wait  for  the  report 
of  the  Canadian  Commission  which  is  now  investisjatins:  the 
subject,  and  which  embraces  in  the  scope  of  its  inquiry  not 
only  Canada  but  the  United  States. 


APPENDIX: 
COMMUNISM  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


THE  ONEIDA  COMMUNITY  AND   AMERICAN 

SOCIALISM. 


This  paper  appeared  in  the  Canadian  Monthly  of  November,  1874.  It  was  sug- 
gested by  a  visit  of  two  days  paid  by  the  writer  to  the  Oneida  Community, 
then  under  the  Presidency  of  Mr.  Noyes.  Mr.  Noyes  has  since  died,  and 
his  death  proved  irreparable  to  his  Community. 


In  "History  of  American  Socialisms,"  by  J.  Humphrey 
Noyes,  founder  and  father  of  the  Oneida  Community,  we 
are  presented  with  an  instructive  enumeration  of  the  various 
socialistic  experiments  made  in  America,  chiefly  within  the 
last  fifty  years. ^  This  enumeration  furnishes  the  basis  for  an 
induction.  That  religious  communities  succeed,  while  the 
non-religious  invariably  fail,  is  the  inference  drawn  by  Mr. 
Noyes,  whose  own  community  is  religious.  "The  one  fea- 
ture," he  says,  "which  distinguishes  these  (the  prosperous) 
communities  from  the  transitory  sort,  is  their  religion;  which 
in  every  case  is  of  the  earnest  kind,  whigh  comes  by  recognised 
afflatus,  and  controls  all  external  arrangements."  "It  seems 
then,"  he  adds,  "to  be  a  fair  induction  from  the  facts  before 
us  tliat  earnest  religion  does  in  some  way  modify  human 
depravity,  so  as  to  make  continuous  association  possible,  and 
insure  to  it  great  material  success." 

To  the  writer  the  facts  suggested  a  different  conclusion; 
but  before  embracing  it  he  wished  to  see  the  Oneida  Com- 
munity.    The  Oneida  Community  is,  at  all  events,  not  afraid 

1  Mr.  Noyes  liad  embodied  in  his  work  the  researches  of  Macdonald,  an 
ex-socialist,  who  devoted  himself  to  the  preparation  of  materials  for  a 
history  of  the  movement. 

361 


;3G2  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

of  being  seen.  The  writer  was  one  of  some  five  hundred  visi- 
tors in  the  month  of  September  alone.  Upon  applying  for 
the  requisite  permission  he  was  received  with  the  most  courte- 
ous hospitality,  and  allowed  freely  to  satisfy  his  curiosity,  so 
far  as  the  shortness  of  his  visit  would  permit.  He  came  away 
confirmed  in  his  previous  opinion. 

Communities  of  steady,  sober,  and  industrious  workers,  held 
together  by  a  religious  bond,  or  by  the  influence  of  a  venerated 
chief,  will  make  money;  if  they  have  no  separate  families 
there  will  be  no  family  interests  to  draw  them  apart;  if  they 
are  childless,  or  have  few  children,  their  money  will  accumu- 
late; their  wealth  will  become  a  new  bond,  but  will  at  the 
same  time  put  a  stop  to  proselytism,  so  that  the  extension  of 
the  community  will  be  limited  by  the  number  of  its  children, 
and  if  it  has  no  children,  it  will  become  extinct.  A  practical 
assurance  of  this  fact,  which  might  have  been  taken  for 
granted  without  any  experiment,  the  writer  believes  to  be  the 
net  upshot  of  the  eighty  experiments  which  have  been  made, 
many  of  them  on  a  very  costly  scale.  In  other  words,  he 
believes  that  the  law  of  success  or  failure  is  not  a  religious 
law,  but  an  economical  law,  and  one  of  the  most  commonplace 
kind.  The  utmost  that  religion  or  sentiment  of  any  sort  has 
done  is  to  form  the  original  bond  of  union,  and  invest  the 
prophet-chief  with  the  necessary  power. 

If  religion  could  sustain  a  communistic  association,  success 
would  have  been  assured  to  Hopedale,  founded  at  Milford, 
Massachusetts,  in  184l,  by  about  thirty  persons  from  different 
parts  of  that  State,  under  Kev.  Adin  Ballou.  This  Commu- 
nity was,  to  use  Mr.  Noyes's  own  expression,  intensely  religious 
in  its  ideal.  In  the  words  of  its  founder,  it  was  "  a  church 
of  Christ,  based  on  a  simple  declaration  of  faith  in  the  religion 
of  Jesus  Christ,  as  He  taught  and  exemplified  it,  according  to 
the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament,  and  of  acknowledged 
subjection  to  all  the  moral  obligations  of  that  religion."  No 
person  could  be  a  member  of  it  who  did  not  cordially  assent  to 
that  declaration.  It  was  "to  afford  a  beginning,  a  specimen 
and  a  presage  of  a  new  and  glorious  social  Christendom  —  a 


APPENDIX.  360 

grand  confederation  of  similar  communities  —  a  world  ulti- 
mately regenerated  and  Edenised."  Nor  was  a  leader  wanting, 
for  Mr.  Ballon,  besides  being  an  ardent  enthusiast,  was  evi- 
dently in  point  of  ability  no  ordinary  man.  He  strove  hard  for 
success.  He  set  the  example  of  labour  by  working,  and  work- 
ing vigorously,  with  his  own  hands.  We  are  told  that  he  would 
sometimes  be  found  exhausted  with  labour,  asleep  on  the 
sunny  side  of  a  haycock,  and  that  the  only  recreation  he  had 
was  occasionally  to  go  out  into  the  neighbourhood  and  preach 
a  funeral  sermon.  The  result,  however,  was  a  total  failure, 
which  Mr.  Ballou  ascribes  to  the  lack  or  the  decline  of  reli- 
gious enthusiasm,  but  which,  at  all  events,  assumed  a  decidedly 
economical  form.  Mr,  Ballou  was  superseded  as  President  by 
Mr.  Draper,  who,  being  a  keen  business  man,  and  in  partner- 
ship with  a  brother  outside,  sacrificed  the  interests  of  the 
Community  to  those  of  his  firm,  got  three-fourths  of  the  stock 
into  his  own  hands,  and  ultimately  compelled  Mr.  Ballou  to 
wind  up. 

It  was  enough  to  ruin  Hopedale  that  it  accepted,  among 
other  Christian  principles,  that  of  "connubiality,"  which,  must 
have  created  separate  interests  and  have  prevented  the  accu- 
mulation of  money,  Avhile  industry  was  probably  slackened  by 
want  of  the  full  stimulus  of  competition  and  by  reliance  on 
the  community.  Mr.  Draper  would  not  have  found  it  so  easy 
to  operate  on  the  stock  of  the  Oneida  Community  or  the 
Eappites. 

There  are  two  great  groups  of  experiments,  all  failures, 
which  Mr.  Noyes  characterises  respectively  as  Owenite  and 
Fourierist,  the  Owenite  Utopias  being  founded  on  the  princi- 
ple of  Communism,  the  Fourierist  on  that  of  Joint-Stock 
Association,  though  the  two  principles  are  apt  to  run  into  eacli 
other,  and  it  is  difficult  to  say  exactly  to  which  class  any  par- 
ticular experiment  belongs.  The  two  fits  of  national  enthu- 
siasm, however,  seem  clearly  marked.  The  first  commenced 
with  the  visit  of  Robert  Owen  to  the  United  States,  in  1824, 
the  second  was  brought  on  twenty  years  later  through  the 
dissemination  of  Fourierism  by  Brisbinc  in  Horace  Greeley's 
|ii])'i'.  tli<'  X'"r  Yi>r]i    Tribune. 


364  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

"Robert  Owen  is  a  remarkable  character.  In  years  nearly 
seventy-five;  in  knowledge  and  experience  superabundant;  in 
benevolence  of  heart  transcendental  ;  in  honesty  without 
disguise;  in  philanthropy  unlimited;  in  religion  a  sceptic;  in 
theology  a  Pantheist;  in  metaphysics  a  necessarian  circum- 
stantialist;  in  morals  a  universal  excusionist;  in  general 
conduct  a  philosophic  non-resistant;  in  socialism  a  Commu- 
nist; in  hope  a  terrestrial  elysianist;  in  practical  business  a 
methodist;  in  deportment  an  unequivocal  gentleman."  Such 
is  the  portrait,  drawn  by  the  sympathising  hand  of  a  fellow 
visionary,  of  the  great  Social  Reformer  who  v^as  to  deliver 
the  world  from  the  monstrous  trinity  of  man's  oppressors  — 
Private  or  Individual  Projoerty,  Irrational  Religion,  and  their 
concomitant.  Marriage.  Owen  had  tried  organised  philan- 
thropy in  Scotland;  but  for  Communism  he  sought  a  more 
fitting  cradle  amidst  the  wild  lands  and  crude  ideas  of  the 
new  world.  He  was  received  with  enthusiasm ;  the  Hall  of 
the  Representatives  at  Washington  was  assigned  him  as  a 
lecture  room,  and  the  President,  the  President  elect,  all  the 
Judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  and  a  number  of  the  Members 
of  Congress  were  among  his  hearers,  while  the  large  private 
fortune  which,  while  he  included  private  property  in  the  tri- 
nity of  evil,  he  had  not  scrupled  to  retain,  furnished  him  with 
the  means  of  trying  his  experiment  on  the  largest  and  most 
costly  scale.  He  purchased  a  fine  property  of  30,000  acres  at 
Harmony,  in  Indiana,  just  vacated  by  the  Rappites,  who  left 
behind  them  good  buildings  and  well  cultivated  fields,  so  that 
"terrestrial  elysianism"  here  escaped  the  hardships  which 
have  proved  fatal  at  once  to  Utopias  founded  in  the  wilder- 
ness. Some  800  people  were  drawn  together  by  the  prospect 
of  unbounded  happiness.  In  the  course  of  eighteen  months 
New  Harmony  had  seven  successive  constitutions.  About  a 
year  after  the  foundation,  "  in  consequence  of  a  variety  of 
troubles  and  disagreements,  chiefly  relating  to  the  disposal  of 
the  property,  a  great  meeting  of  the  whole  population  was 
held,  and  it  was  decided  to  form  four  separate  societies,  each 
signing  its  own  contract  for  such  part  of  the  property  as  it 


APPENDIX.  365 

shall  purchase,  and  each  managing  its  own  affairs;  but  to 
trade  with  each  other  by  paper  money."  Mr.  Owen  had  not 
shown  sufficient  confidence  in  his  own  theory  to  give  up  his 
hold  either  on  the  land  or  on  the  power.  We  are  told  that 
he  was  now  beginning  to  make  sharp  bargains  with  the  inde- 
pendent Communists.  "He  had  lost  money,  and  no  doubt  he 
tried  to  regain  some  of  it,  and  used  such  means  as  he  thought 
would  prevent  further  loss."  Yet  he  chose  this  time  for  a 
solemn  re-promulgation  of  his  communistic  creed  under  the 
title  of  the  Declaration  of  Mental  Independence. 

"Disagreements  and  jealousies."  "Many  persons  leaving. 
The  Gazette  shows  how  impossible  it  is  for  a  community  of 
common  property  to  exist,  unless  the  members  comprising  it 
have  acquired  the  genuine  community  character."  "  Although 
there  was  an  appearance  of  increased  order  and  happiness, 
yet  matters  were  drawing  to  a  close.  Owen  was  selling  pro- 
perty to  individuals;  the  greater  part  of  tlie  town  was  now 
resolved  into  individual  lots;  a  grocery  was  established 
opposite  the  tavern;  painted  sign-boards  began  to  be  stuck 
up  on  the  buildings,  pointing  out  places  of  manufacture  and 
trade;  a  sort  of  wax-figure  and  puppet-show  was  opened  at 
one  end  of  the  boarding-house;  and  everything  was  getting 
into  the  old  style."  It  is  useless,  as  Mr.  Koyes  says,  to  follow 
this  wreck  further.  The  destructive  forces  of  roguery  and 
wliisky  seem  to  have  mingled  with  the  fundamental  impracti- 
cability of  the  scheme  in  bringing  on  the  final  catastrophe. 
Owen  complained  that  he  got  the  wrong  sort  of  people,  the 
dislionest,  the  intemperate,  the  idle,  the  apathetic,  the  selfish, 
instead  of  the  honest,  the  temperate,  the  industrious,  the 
active-minded  and  the  self-sacrificing.  But  we  should  say  he 
got  the  right  sort  of  people  for  the  purpose  of  a  social  reformer 
who  undertakes  by  the  application  of  his  regimen  to  purge 
liuman  nature  of  its  vices  and  transform  society.  The  inventor 
of  a  patent  medicine  might  as  well  complain  that  he  got  the 
sick  and  not  the  healthy  to  operate  on.  One  of  the  quali- 
fications prescribed  by  Owen  for  the  members  of  his  Com- 
munity Avas  a  conviction  of  the  fact  that  the  character  of  man 


366  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

is  formed  for,  and  not  by,  himself.  The  people  of  New  Har- 
mony showed  practically  that  they  were  fully  possessed  of  this 
qualification. 

Mr.  Owen  afterwards  became  a  Spiritualist  and  a  believer 
in  Special  Providence.  If  he  had  been  so  before,  Mr.  iSToyes 
seems  to  think,  the  result  of  the  experiment  at  JSTew  Harmony 
would  have  been  different.  We  will  touch  on  this  point  here- 
after. Here  it  is  important  to  notice  that,  whatever  may 
have  been  his  theory,  Owen  did  not  attempt  any  practical 
innovation  on  the  subject  of  marriage;  at  least  he  did  not 
attempt  to  annihilate  the  separate  family  or  to  check  the  propa- 
gation of  children. 

Another  great  experiment  on  Mr.  Owen's  principles  was 
made  at  Yellow  Springs,  in  Ohio,  the  present  site  of  Antioch 
College,  the  coeducational  university,  so  that  there  seems  to 
be  something  Radical  in  the  soil.  This  Community  consisted 
of  about  a  hundred  families,  and  included  professional  men, 
teachers,  merchants,  mechanics,  farmers,  and  a  few  common 
labourers.  "  In  the  first  few  Aveeks  all  entered  into  the  new 
system  with  a  will.  Service  was  the  order  of  the  day.  Men 
who  seldom  or  never  before  laboured  with  their  hands, 
devoted  themselves  to  agriculture  and  the  mechanic  arts 
with  a  zeal  which  was  always  commendable,  though  not 
always  according  to  knowledge.  Ministers  of  the  Gospel 
guided  the  plough;  called  the  swine  to  their  corn  instead 
of  sinners  to  repentance;  and  let  patience  have  her  perfect 
work  over  an  unruly  yoke  of  oxen.  Merchants  exchanged 
the  yard-stick  for  the  rake  or  pitchfork.  All  appeared 
to  labour  cheerfully  and  for  the  common  weal.  Among  the 
women  there  was  even  more  apparent  self-sacrifice.  Ladies 
who  had  seldom  seen  the  inside  of  their  own  kitchens  went 
into  that  of  the  common  eating-house  (formerly  hotel)  and 
made  themselves  useful  among  pots  and  kettles ;  and  refined 
young  ladies,  who  had  all  their  lives  been  waited  upon,  took 
their  turn  in  waiting  upon  others  at  the  table.  And  several 
times  a  week  all  parties  who  chose,  mingled  in  the  social 
dance  in  the  great   dining-hall."     This    continued  for  three 


APPENDIX.  a07 

months.  Then  —  "the  industrious,  the  skilful,  and  the  strong 
saw  the  products  of  their  labour  enjoyed  by  the  ignorant,  the 
unskilled,  and  the  improvident;  and  self-love  rose  against 
benevolence.  A  band  of  musicians  insisted  that  their  brassy 
harmony  was  as  necessary  to  the  common  happiness  as  bread 
and  meat;  and  declined  to  enter  the  harvest-field  or  the  work- 
shop. A  lecturer  upon  natural  science  insisted  upon  talking 
only  while  others  worked.  Mechanics,  whose  day's  labour 
brought  two  dollars  into  the  common  stock,  insisted  that  they 
should  in  justice  work  only  half  as  long  as  the  agriculturist, 
whose  day's  work  brought  but  one."  It  is  strange  that  these 
words  should  have  been  written  by  one  who  is  himself  a 
Communist. 

With  New  Harmony  and  Yellow  Springs,  went  to  "that 
limbo  near  the  moon  "  the  ghosts  of  a  number  of  other  abor- 
tive attempts  of  the  Owenite  epoch.  The  history  of  the  fail- 
ure in  some  cases  is  traced,  and  it  is  clear  that  the  result  was 
due  to  the  irresistible  action  of  the  economic  laws  which  the 
projectors  had  undertaken  to  supersede ;  in  other  cases  the  end 
is  shrouded  in  pathetic  silence,  but  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
course  of  events  was  essentially  the  same.  It  is  sad  to  think 
of  the  waste  of  earnest,  perhaps  heroic  effort,  and  of  the  dis- 
appointment of  generous  hopes.  Owen  had  his  qualities,  but 
to  call  him  a  genius  of  the  first  order  is  preposterous.  Genius 
in  art  produces  high  works  of  imagination;  but  genius  in 
action  does  not  indulge  in  impracticable  reveries,  and  cover  the 
world  with  the  wrecks  of  schemes  the  failure  of  which  common 
sense  might  have  foreseen. 

That  any  one  in  his  senses  should  have  followed  Fourier, 
has  always  seemed  to  us  one  of  the  most  curious  facts  in  the 
history  of  opinion.  This  visionary  believed  that  the  grand 
mistake,  and  the  source  of  all  disorder  and  misery,  was  the 
habit  of  attempting  to  restrain  our  passions,  and  that  ])y  let- 
ting them  all  loose,  and  giving  free  play  to  every  kind  of 
propensity  and  idiosyncrasy,  we  should  produce  complete  equi- 
librium and  perfect  harmony  in  society.  His  plan  of  material 
felicity  is  hallucination  verging  upon  lunacy.     To  match  this 


308  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAT. 

he  had  a  philosophy  of  history  than  which  wilder  nonsense 
never  was  penned,  even  on  that  seductive  theme.  Never- 
theless, he  possessed  some  sort  of  electricity  which  called 
into  activity  the  Utopian  tendencies  of  other  men.  About 
twenty  years  after  the  appearance  of  Owen,  the  conditions 
of  soil  and  atmosphere  in  the  United  States  being  then 
favourable  to  fungoid  growths,  a  crop  of  Fourierist  Phalanxes 
sprung  up  like  mushrooms,  and,  like  mushrooms,  died.  The 
economical  reasons  of  their  death  are  such  as  common  sense 
would  at  once  suggest,  and  are  disclosed  with  almost  ludicrous 
distinctness.  "The  transition,"  says  Mr.  Noyes,  always  clear- 
sighted, except  with  regard  to  his  own  peculiar  phase  of  the 
illusion,  "  from  the  compulsory  industry  of  civilisaticm  to  the 
voluntary,  but  not  yet  attractive  industry  of  association,  is 
not  favourable  to  the  highest  industrial  effects.  Men  who 
have  been  accustomed  to  shirk  labour  under  the  feeling  that 
they  had  poor  pay  for  hard  work  will  not  be  transformed  sud- 
denly into  kings  of  industry  by  the  atmosphere  of  a  Phalanx. 
There  will  be  more  or  less  loafing,  a  good  deal  of  exertion 
unwisely  applied,  a  certain  waste  of  strength  in  random  and 
unsystematic  efforts,  and  a  want  of  the  business-like  precision 
and  force  which  makes  every  blow  tell,  and  tell  in  the  right 
place.  Under  these  circumstances  many  will  grow  uneasy, 
at  length  become  discouraged,  and,  perhaps,  prove  false  to 
their  early  love."  Mr.  Noyes  proceeds  to  say  that  these  are 
temporary  evils  and  will  pass  away.  They  may  be  suspended 
by  the  strong  hand  of  a  chief  like  Mr.  Noyes,  but  they  will 
pass  away  only  with  human  nature. 

The  passionate  expressions  of  enthusiasm,  the  confident 
belief  that  under  Fourier,  "  the  Columbus  of  social  discovery, " 
the  caravels  of  enterprise  were  again  touching  the  shore  of  a 
new  world,  the  first  chilling  contact  with  the  inexorable  real- 
ity, the  struggle,  sometimes  a  gallant  one,  against  overmas- 
tering fate,  the  inevitable  break-up,  the  voice  of  faith  trying 
to  rise  triumphant  over  the  wreck  of  hope,  are  enough  to  touch 
any  heart  less  stern  than  that  of  an  economical  Rhadamanthus. 
But  comedy  is  mingled  with  the   tragedy.     A  scene  at  the 


APPENDIX.  369 

opening  of  the  Clermont  Phalanx  reminds  us  of  one  in  "  Martin 
Chuzzlevvit. "  "  There  were  about  one  hundred  and  thirty  of  us. 
The  weather  was  beautiful,  but  cold,  and  the  scenery  on  the 
river  w:as  splendid  in  its  spring  dress.  The  various  parties 
brought  their  provisions  with  them,  and  toward  noon  the  whole 
of  it  was  collected  and  spread  upon  the  table  by  the  Avaiters, 
for  all  to  have  an  equal  chance.  But  alas  for  equality!  On 
the  meal  being  ready,  a  rush  was  made  into  the  cabin,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  all  the  seats  were  filled.  In  a  few  minutes 
more  the  provisions  had  all  disappeared,  and  many  persons 
who  were  not  in  the  first  rush  had  to  go  hungry.  I  lost  my 
dinner  that  day,  but  improved  the  opportunity  to  observe 
and  criticise  the  ferocity  of  the  Pourierist  appetite."  At 
Prairie  Home  there  was  an  Englishman  named  John  Wood 
who  was  imperfectly  Fourierised.  John,  having  blacked  his 
boots,  put  away  the  brushes  and  blacking.  "  Out  came  a 
Dutchman  and  looked  out  for  the  same  utensils.  Not  seeing 
them,  he  asked  the  Englishman  for  the  'prushes.'  So  John 
brings  them  out  and  hands  them  to  him,  whereupon  the  Dutch- 
man marches  to  the  front  of  the  porch,  and  in  wrathful  style, 
Avith  the  brushes  uplifted  in  his  hand,  he  addresses  the  assem- 
bled crowd:  'He-ar!  lookee  he-ar!  Do  you  call  dis  commu- 
nity? Is  dis  common  property?  See  he-ar!  I  ask  him  for 
de  prushes  to  placken  mine  poots,  and  he  give  me  de  prushes 
and  not  give  me  de  placking ! ' "  Occasionally  we  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  form  of  a  speculating  Yankee  floating  like  a 
shark  among  the  flat  fish,  with  no  visionary  intentions.  The 
members  of  the  communities  generally  appear  to  have  been 
honest  and  loyal  to  the  common  cause,  but  at  the  end  of  the 
Sodus  Bay  experiment  we  are  told  that  "  each  individual  helped 
himself  to  the  movable  property,  and  some  decamped  in  the 
night,  leaving  the  remains  of  the  Phalanx  to  be  disposed  of 
in  any  way  wliich  the  last  men  miglit  choose." 

Eouvierism   finally   staked  its  existence  on  the  success  of 
the  North  American  Phalanx,  which  was  planted  not  in  the 
wilderness  but  near  New  York  City.     This  Community,  con- 
sisting of  only  a  hundred  members  of  both  sexes,   starting 
2b 


370  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

with  a  capital  of  $28,000,  and  supported  by  tlie  dead-lift 
efforts  of  the  leaders  of  the  school,  dragged  on  its  existence 
for  twelve  years.  But  the  inevitable  did  not  fail  to  arrive. 
"Most  of  theju,"  says  an  observer,  "are  decent  sort  of  people, 
have  few  bad  qualities  and  not  many  good  ones,  but  tliey  are 
evidently  not  working  for  an  idea.  They  make  no  effort  to 
extend  their  principles,  and  do  not  build,  as  a  general  thing, 
unless  a  person  wanting  to  join  builds  for  himself.  Under 
such  circumstances  the  progress  of  the  movement  must  neces- 
sarily be  slow,  if  ever  it  progress  at  all.  Latterly  the  num- 
ber of  members  and  probationers  has  decreased.  They  find  it 
necessary  to  employ  hired  labourers  to  develop  the  resources 
of  the  land."  The  powers  of  talking,  directing  others,  and 
grumbling,  were  found  to  be  possessed  in  a  high  degree  by 
those  who  had  little  power  of  work.  At  meals  the  best  of  the 
food  was  taken  by  those  who  had  stayed  at  home,  while  "  the 
swinked  hedger,"  coming  late  from  the  field  and  then  having 
to  wash,  got  the  worst.  Eighteen  hundred  was  Fourier's  pet 
number  of  members  for  a  Phalanx.  The  people  were  asked 
what  would  have  happened  if  the  North  American  Phalanx 
had  consisted  of  that  number :  they  answered  that  it  would  have 
broken  up  in  two  years. 

Brook  Parm  stands  by  itself,  and  Hawthorne's  "Blithedale 
Romance "  has  made  it  sufficiently  familiar  to  the  general 
reader.  It  would  be  an  injustice  to  call  it  "a  pic-nic,"  or  to 
say  that  "half  the  members  worked  while  the  other  half 
sketched  them  from  the  windows."  It  was  a  little  Boston 
Utopia,  in  which  a  number  of  men,  afterwards  notable  in  the 
intellectual  world,  sowed  their  philosophic  wild  oats,  and 
gratified  the  literary  man's  fancy  for  manual  labour,  sharpen- 
ing their  wits  no  doubt  at  the  same  time  by  intercourse  with 
each  other.  If  they  seriously  believed  that  men  trained  to 
work  with  the  brain  could,  with  advantage  to  themselves  or 
to  society,  take  to  working  with  their  hands,  they  were  the 
victims  of  a  strange  illusion.  The  effective  combination  of 
manual  with  mental  labour,  as  a  system,  is  impracticable. 
Both  draAV  on  the  same  fund  of  nervous  energy,  which,  when 
drained  by  one  sort  of  labour,  is  unable  to  supply  the  other. 


APPENDIX.  371 

Mr.  Noyes  is  of  opinion  that  among  the  causes  of  failure  in 
all  these  cases,  was  the  universal  propensity  to  invest  in  land 
and  engage  in  the  business  of  farming.  Factories,  he  thinks, 
are  more  suitable  for  communistic  experiments.  But  surely, 
if  the  afflatus  is  the  decisive  thing,  the  investment  ought  not 
to  be  of  so  much  consequence. 

With  the  principles  of  common  property  or  associated 
labour,  there  mingled  in  these  Utopias  all  the  other  chimeras 
and  fanaticisms  of  the  day: — Individual  Sovereignty  — 
Labour  Exchange  —  Paper  Currency  —  Transcendentalism  — 
Swedenborgianism  —  Vegetarianism  —  Blumerism  — Woman's 
Rights  —  Anti-domestic-servantism  —  Spiritualism.  Every- 
thing impracticable,  in  short,  came  to  find  a  place  for  putting 
itself  in  practice  outside  the  conditions  of  existence.  Mr. 
Noyes  traces  the  connection  of  Socialism  with  religious  revi- 
vals, and  shows  that  people  who  were  preparing  their  Ascension 
robes  were  the  unconscious  harbingers  of  the  Fourierist  move- 
ment. The  Skeneateles  Community  had,  as  one  of  the  articles 
of  its  programme,  "  a  disbelief  in  the  rightful  existence  of  all 
governments  built  upon  physical  force, "  and  proclaimed  "that 
they  were  organised  bands  of  banditti,  whose  authority  was 
to  be  disregarded";  that  it  would  not  vote  under  such  govern- 
ments, or  petition  to  them,  but  "  demanded  that  they  should 
disband";  that  it  would  do  no  military  duty,  pay  no  taxes, 
sit  on  no  juries,  give  no  testimony  in  "courts  of  so-called 
justice  " ;  that  "  it  would  never  appeal  to  the  law  for  a  redress 
of  grievances,  but  use  all  peaceful  and  moral  means  to  secure 
their  complete  destruction."  The  relation  between  the  sexes 
was  of  course  one  of  the  fields  for  innovation.  Robert  Dale 
Owen  carried  not  only  the  law  separating  the  property  of 
married  women  from  that  of  their  husbands,  but  the  divorce 
law  of  Indiana.  As  a  general  rule,  the  mother  of  all  these 
"notions"  was  New  England,  Avho  will  have  to  take  care  that 
she  does  not  become  as  great  a  source  of  mischief  to  this 
continent  as  South  Carolina,  though  in  a  different  Avay. 

The  failures  we  have  seen.  Now  what  were  the  successes, 
and  what  was  the  reason  of  their  success.     Was  it  afflatus, 


372  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

or  sometliing  more  commonplace?  The  list  drawn  up  by  Mr. 
JSToyes  in  1870  is  as  follows: 

BeizeVs  Community.  — •  Has  lasted  one  hundred  and  fifty-six 
years;  was  at  one  time  very  rich;  has  money  at  interest  yet; 
some  of  its  grand  old  buildings  are  still  standing. 

The  Shaker  Community.  —  Has  lasted  ninety-five  years. 
Consists  of  eighteen  large  societies,  many  of  them  very 
wealthy. 

The  Zoar  Community.  — Eifty -three  years  old  and  wealthy. 

The  Snoivherger  Community. — Forty -nine  years  old  and 
"well  off." 

The  Ebenezer  Community.  —  Twenty-three  years  old,  and 
said  to  be  the  largest  and  richest  Community  in  the  United 
States. 

The  Janson  Community. — Twenty -three  years  old  and 
wealthy. 

The  Oneida  Community,  which  is  also  a  commercial  success, 
we  omit  for  the  present,  undertaking  hereafter  to  show  that  its 
case  is  covered  by  our  induction. 

All  the  communities  enumerated  are  religious.  But  they 
are  not  the  only  religious  communities.  Hopedale,  as  we 
have  said,  was  religious  in  the  highest  degree,  and  its  re- 
ligion was  a  better  one  than  that  of  these  ignorant  and 
fanatical  little  sects.  Even  the  spirit-rapping  communities 
might  claim  to  be  placed  on  a  level,  in  the  spiritual  scale, 
with  the  saltatory  religion  of  Shakers.  But  Hopedale,  as 
we  have  seen,  was  strongly  Conservative  w^th  regard  to 
marriage.  That  which  is  at  once  common  to  all  the  suc- 
cessful communities,  and  peculiar  to  them,  is  the  rejection  of 
marriage,  whereby  in  the  first  place  they  are  exempted  from 
the  disuniting  influence  of  the  separate  family:  and  in  the 
second  place,  they  are  enabled  to  accumulate  wealth  in  a  way 
which  would  be  impossible  if  tliey  had  children  to  maintain. 

The  members  of  Beizel's  Community  are  strict  celibates; 
so  are  the  Shakers;  so  are  the  Rappites;  so  are  the  Snowber- 
gers.  The  Ebenezers  permit  marriage  "when  their  guiding 
spirit  consents  to  it";  but  the  parties  have  to  undergo  some 


APPENDIX.  373 

public  mortification ;  and  tlie  Community  at  its  foundation, 
to  meet  the  difficulties  of  the  struggle,  resolved  that  for  a 
given  number  of  years  there  should  be  no  increase  of  their 
population  by  births,  which  resolution  was  carried  into  effect. 
Among  the  Zoarites,  marriage  is  now  permitted.  But  we 
are  told  that  at  their  first  organisation  it  was  strictly  forbid- 
den, not  from  religious  scruple,  but  as  an  indispensable  mat- 
ter of  economy;  that  for  years  no  child  was  seen  within  their 
village;  and  that,  though  the  regulation  has  been  removed, 
the  settlement  retains  much  of  its  old  character  in  this  re- 
spect. The  Jansonists,  though  they  do  not  forbid  marriage, 
hold  that  a  "  life  of  celibacy  is  more  adapted  to  develop  the 
life  of  the  inner  man."  In  fact  these  associations  are  not 
so  much  communistic  as  monastic,  and  belong  to  a  class  of 
phenomena  already  familiar  enough  to  economical  history. 

The  Eappites,  a  set  of  enthusiasts  who  expected  the  speedy 
advent  of  the  Millennium,  called  their  first  two  settlements 
Harmony.  Their  third,  by  a  significant  change  of  name,  they 
called  Economy.  They  are  not  only  wealthy,  but  millionnaires 
of  the  first  order.  We  are  not  surprised  to  learn  that  they 
do  not  proselytise,  though  converts  enough  might  undoubtedly 
be  found  to  a  doctrine  even  more  extravagant  than  Kappism, 
if  it  were  endowed  with  twenty  millions.  The  Silver  Islet 
Company  would  be  about  as  likely  to  desire  proselytes.^ 
Those  who  have  visited  the  Community  report  that  all  its 
members  are  advanced  in  years.  The  end  of  Rapp's  Millen- 
nium is  in  fact  a  tontine,  which  will  terminate  in  a  Rappite 
Astor. 

We  are  far  from  saying  that  in  these  cases  the  religion  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  result.  It  collected  and  united  a  body 
of  enthusiasts,  whose  very  fanaticism,  being  of  the  coarsest 
kind,  was  a  guarantee  for  their  belonging  to  a  class  accus- 
tomed to  manual  labour  and  to  submission;  it  helped  to  hold 
them  together  through  the  first  struggle  for  subsistence;  and, 
what  was  perhaps  the  most  important  point  of  all,  it  led  them 

1  When  this  was  written  the  Silver  Islet  on  Lake  Superior  was  yielding 
immense  riches. 


374  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

to  render  implicit  obedience  to  a  prophet-chief,  who,  whether 
fanatic  or  impostor,  was  pretty  sure  to  be  an  able  man.  The 
ascendancy  of  the  prophet-chief  is  evidently  the  mainspring 
of  Mormonism,  which  is  also  a  great  material  success.  But 
we  very  much  doubt  whether  even  the  strong  hand  of  Brig- 
ham  Young  could  hold  together  for  a  year  a  Utah  combining 
the  separate  family  and  free  propagation  of  children  with 
community  of  goods. 

The  Oneida  Community,^  a  visit  to  which  suggested  the 
subject  of  this  paper,  was  founded  in  1847,  by  the  Rev.  John 
Humphrey  Noyes,  a  man  whose  ability  is  written  on  his  brow, 
on  the  pages  of  his  vigorously-written  books,  and  on  the  work 
of  his  organising  hands.  He  was,  by  his  own  confession,  a 
religious  enthusiast  of  the  wildest  and  most  erratic  kind. 
Libertinism  he  has  not  confessed,  though  by  loose  and  sensa- 
tional versions  of  his  words,  it  has  been  made  to  appear  that 
he  has  done  so.^  The  form  of  religious  enthusiasm  in  which 
he  ultimately  landed  was  Perfectionism.  Tlie  gist  of  the  Per- 
fectionists' creed,  if  we  rightly  comprehend  it,  is  that  the 
second  coiiiing  of  Christ  took  place  in  the  lifetime  of  St.  John: 
that  the  reign  of  Law  in  every  sense  then  iinally  gave  place  to 
that  of  the  Spirit;  that  now,  the  believer  united  with  Christ, 
and  "confessing  holiness,"  is  above  all  ordinances,  including 
the  ordinance  of  marriage,  and  perfectly  free  from  sin.  This 
sounds  like  Antinomianism,  but  we  are  told  that  it  is  only 
"anti-legality."  At  all  events  it  is  not  the  professed  belief  of 
the  Perfectionists  that  one  of  their  number  cannot  do  wrong. 
There  is  a  series  of  subordinate  articles,  some  of  them  highly 
mystical,  while  others,  introducing  Spiritualism,  have  proba- 
bly been  grafted  on  the  religion  since  its  first  promulgation. 

1  Since  this  was  written  Mr.  Noyes,  then  at  the  head  of  the  Community, 
has  died. 

2  An  incident,  however,  which  is  related  by  Mr.  Noyes  himself  in  the 
Oneida  Circular.,  and  which  occui-red  in  1846,  indicates  plainly  enough 
that  a  case  of  elective  affinities  was  the  immediate  source  of  his  theory 
about  the  relations  between  the  sexes,  and  of  his  practical  application 
of  that  theory  in  the  Oneida  Community. 


APPENDIX.  375 

The  Bible  is  implicitly  received,  though  with  Perfectionist 
interpretations.  Scepticism  is  denounced.  Much  is  made  of 
special  interpositions  of  Providence,  and  of  Providential 
"signals."  Form  of  worship  the  Perfectionists  have  none. 
They  only  confess  Christ  before  each  other,  and  communicate 
religious  thought  in  their  family  gathering.  The  Sabbath  is 
not  distinguished  from  tlie  week  except  by  cessation  from 
work.  This  religion  is  proclaimed  to  be  still  the  bond  of 
union  among  the  members  of  the  Community.  They  Avill  tell 
you  that  they  are  held  together  by  Father  Noyes'  love  of 
Christ,  and  by  their  love  of  Father  ISToyes. 

The  Community  at  Oneida  numbers  two  hundred.  At  Wil- 
low Place,  on  a  detached  portion  of  the  same  domain,  are  nine- 
teen more;  and  there  are  forty-five  in  a  branch  at  Walling- 
ford,  Connecticut.  All  these  are  supposed  to  constitute  one 
family,  with  the  founder  as  father.  The  property  is  held  in 
common;  there  are  no  separate  interests,  incomes,  or  allow- 
ances whatever.  The  several  members  of  the  family  are  pre- 
sented with  such  money  as  they  may  require  from  time  to 
time,  just  as  children  are  furnished  with  pocket  money  by  their 
parents,  the  only  restriction  being  family  duty.  The  other 
characteristic  feature  of  the  system  is  one  which  it  is  difficult 
to  describe  in  language  at  once  measured  and  adequately 
expressive  of  the  feelings  of  repugnance  with  which  it  must 
be  regarded  by  every  one  who  acknoAvledges  the  Christian  rule 
of  morals.  The  marriage  tie  is  totally  discarded.  The  male 
and  female  members  of  the  Community  pair  with  each  other 
for  a  time,  and  for  a  time  only;  not  promiscuously,  but  under 
the  authority  of  the  Community,  which  appears  to  be  guided 
in  regulating  these  matters  partly  by  the  policy  of  restraining 
the  increase  of  its  numbers,  partly  by  physical  rules  connected 
with  what  is  styled  the  scientific  propagation  of  children. 
The  initiative  is  assigned  to  the  woman,  who  makes  it  known 
to  the  authorities  when  she  is  willing  to  become  a  mother. 
She  is  not  permanently  wedded  to  one  partner,  but  may  have 
two  or  three  in  succession.  So  that  the  "permanence"  predi- 
cated of  Oneida  unions,  in  the  Circular,  must  have  reference 


37(5  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

not  to  the  individual  parties,  but  to  the  family  aggregate. 
The  parental  relation  is  not  ignoi'ed,  but  it  is  merged  in  the 
Community,  the  children  being  brought  up  together  as  brothers 
and  sisters  in  common  nurseries.  There  are  certain  supple- 
mentary portions  of  the  system  which  its  inventor  is  in  the 
habit  of  bringing  without  reserve  before  the  public,  but  over 
which  ordinary  sentiment  enjoins  us  to  draw  a  veil. 

During  the  early  years  of  the  Community  few  children  were 
born  to  it,  though  of  late,  and  apparently  in  connection  with 
the  growth  of  its  wealth,  the  number  of  births  has  been 
allowed  to  increase.  And  thus  we  have  again  the  two  fami- 
liar and  simple  conditions  of  success,  exemption  from  the 
disuniting  influence  of  the  separate  family,  and  tlie  facility 
for  the  accumulation  of  wealth  attendant  on  the  absence  or 
paucity  of  children.  Communism,  in  fine,  can  be  rendered 
practicable  only  by  a  standing  defiance  of  morality  and  nature. 

In  the  case  of  the  Oneida  Community  the  measure  of  com- 
mercial success  has  been  large.  A  strong  business  head  has 
controlled  its  financial  operations  as  well  as  its  internal 
economy.  The  principle  that  afflatus  eschews  land  and 
delights  in  factories  has  been  carried  into  effect  with  the 
most  gratifying  result.  The  Community  owns  a  farm  of  650 
acres,  highly  cultivated,  round  its  mansion;  but  its  chief 
investments,  and  the  source  of  its  opulence,  are  three  factories, 
—  one  of  traps,  one  of  silk  goods,  and  one  of  canned  fruit. 
The  trap  factory,  which  seems  a  singular  line  of  business 
to  be  chosen  by  Perfectionism,  is  a  monument  of  one  of 
the  original  members  of  the  Community,  who  was  a  trapper 
and  a  maker  of  traps.  The  canned  fruit  of  Oneida  enjoys  the 
highest  reputation,  and  we  do  not  doubt  the  truth  of  the 
assertion  that  the  business  might  be  greatly  extended  if  the 
Community  chose  to  borrow  capital.  Manual  labour,,  though 
not  repudiated  by  members  of  the  Community,  as  the  writer 
can  testify,  is  now  chiefly  performed  by  hired  hands,  of  whom 
there  are  about  150  in  the  factories,  besides  some  negroes  em- 
ployed in  the  coarser  housework.  The  members  of  the  Com- 
munity, as  a  general  rule,  are  now,  like  other  capitalists,  the 


APPENDIX.  377 

employers  and  directors  of  labour.  They  are  apparently  good 
employers,  and,  in  case  of  any  attempt  to  disturb  them  on  the 
ground  of  their  defiance  of  established  morality,  they  feel 
secure  in  the  attachment  of  the  people  around  them,  many  of 
whom,  we  are  told,  are  English  immigrants.  It  is  a  remark- 
able proof  of  the  confidence  of  the  Community,  both  in  its 
own  cohesiveness  and  in  its  ability  to  face  scrutiny,  that  it  has 
ventured  to  send  several  of  its  young  men  to  the  Scientific 
Department  of  Yale  College,  in  order  to  supply  itself  with  the 
scientific  element  requisite  for  its  manufacturing  purposes. 

The  mansion  is  a  spacious  and  handsome  range  of  buildings, 
fitted  up  simply,  but  with  every  comfort.     Its  public  rooms 
are  a  double  dining-hall,  a  large  parlour,  with  a  stage  for  the 
gatherings  and  amusements  of  the  whole  family,  and  other 
parlours  for  the  meeting  of  smaller  circles.     Round  it  are 
well-kept  grounds,   to  which   the    Community  admits  neigh- 
bours and  visitors  with  liberality  which  must  somewhat  inter- 
fere with   the   purposes    of   its   own   enjoyment.     With   the 
charms  of  green  lawns,  shady  walks,  and  gay  flower-beds,  are 
combined  views  of  a  valley,  which,  in  its  rich  cultivation  and 
the    soft  outlines    of   the    hills   surrounding  it,    reminds  the 
traveller   of  England.      There   are   croquet   grounds,    which 
appear  to  be  in  constant  use.     A  few  miles  off,  by  the  side  of 
a  lake,  the  Community  has  a  hunting-box,  called  Joppa,  to 
which  excursions  are   frequently  made.     Pleasure  evidently 
has   its   due   place   among  the   objects   of  existence,  and   is 
organised  with  care  and  on  a  liberal  scale.     Teams  in  suffi- 
cient number  appeared  to  be  at  the  service  of  the  brethren. 
Music  is  nnich  cultivated,  and,  by  a  refinement  of  humanity, 
the  practising  room  is  a  separate  building,  at  some  distance 
from  the  mansion.     In  winter,  intellectual  juirsuits  and  self- 
culture  are  the  order  of  the  day.     The  writer  was  told  that 
an  old  lady  had  taken  up  Greek  and  acquired  the  power  of 
reading  the  New  Testament  in  the  original  tongue. 

The  library  is  furnished  with  books  of  all  kinds,  and  New 
York  papers  are  on  tlie  table.  The  Community,  however, 
is  politically  quietist,  and  its  members  never  vote.     Politi- 


378  QUESTIONS   OF   THE    DAY. 

eal  divisions  might  disturb  the  family,  though  the  writer  was 
told  that  the  members  were  all  in  spirit  New  Englanders,  and 
would  vote  Avitli  the  Republican  party.  They  escaped  the 
military  draft  through  the  error  of  two  officials,  each  of 
whom  supposed  the  Community  to  be  in  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
other. 

"This  reform  means  trousers,"  said  a  female  advocate  of 
Woman's  Eights  the  other  day  in  the  United  States.  The 
ladies  of  the  Oneida  Community  have  adojoted  the  Blumer 
costume,  though  in  a  mitigated  form.  Mr.  Hepworth  Dixon 
has  recorded  his  opinion  that  this  dress  is  becoming.  He 
could  hardly  extend  his  commendation  to  the  practice  of  cut- 
ting the  hair  short  in  male  fashion,  which  is  also  universal 
among  the  Oneida  ladies;  at  least,  if  he  did,  we  should  be 
unable  to  agree  with  him. 

Cookery  is  not  delegated  to  inferior  hands,  but  done  by 
those  of  the  Perfectionists  themselves.  The  fare  is  simple 
but  most  excellent.  There  appear  to  be  no  rigorous  ordi- 
nances about  diet.  As  a  matter  of  habit  and  taste,  meat  is 
sparingly  eaten,  but  vegetarianism  is  not  enjoined.  Stimu- 
lants are  banished  from  the  board,  but  the  use  of  them  is  not 
morally  proscribed;  at  least  they  are  offered  to  a  guest. 
Tobacco  is  denounced  by  Father  Noyes.  One  of  the  brethren 
was  living  entirely  on  brown  bread  and  baked  apples,  at  an 
expense  to  the  Community,  as  he  reckoned,  of  twelve  cents  a 
day.  But  this  was  voluntary,  and  the  motive  was  dietetic. 
While  there  is  no  appearance  of  luxury,  asceticism  is  equally 
unknown. 

Among  the  members  of  the  Community  are  persons  of 
various  social  grades  and  degrees  of  education  —  ex-clergymen 
and  ex-lawyers,  as  well  as  mechanics;  though  there  must 
obviously  be  a  limit  intellectually  to  the  class  disposed  to 
believe  in  Perfectionism  and  Father  Noyes.  If  you  ask  hoAV 
order  and  harmony  are  preserved  in  so  large  and  so  heteroge- 
neous a  family,  the  all-sufficing  answer  is,  through  the  institu- 
tion of  mutual  criticism.  Every  member  of  the  Community, 
in  turn,  is  compelled  thus  to  submit  himself  to  the  organised 


APPENDIX.  ;j79 

influence  of  social  opinion,  in  order  that  lie  may  be  warned  of 
Ids  social  faults  and  constrained  to  address  liiniself  to  their 
cure.  The  author  of  "New  America"  had  the  good  fortune  to 
witness  one  of  these  singular  operations,  which  at  that  time 
were  performed  in  the  great  parlour  by  the  Community  at 
large.  But  the  duty  has  since  been  delegated  to  a  Committee 
of  Criticism,  which  summons  before  it  the  person  to  be  criti- 
cised, together  with  those  who  are  most  intimate  with  him 
and  best  qualified  to  point  out  his  defects.  It  is  asserted  that 
the  system  perfectly  answers  its  purpose,  and  that  at  the  same 
time  it  has  the  effect  of  banishing  from  the  Community  irregu- 
lar backbiting  and  malevolent  love  of  scandal.  It  may  be 
doubted,  perhaps,  whether  this  or  any  other  gentle  instrument 
of  government  would  work  so  well  if  within  the  velvet  glove 
were  not  felt  the  iron  hand  of  Father  Noyes,  though  the 
members  of  the  Community  speak  with  confidence  of  the 
self-sustaining  power  of  the  system,  and  profess  to  look 
forward  without  fear  to  a  demise  of  the  paternal  crown. 

To  preserve  the  unity  of  the  family,  all  the  members  are 
assembled  for  an  hour  every  evening  in  the  great  parlour. 
Matters  of  interest  to  the  whole  Community  are  then  brought 
forward  and  discussed,  correspondence  is  read,  sympathy  is 
expressed  with  the  sick,  professions  of  religious  sentiment  are 
exchanged.  To  give  the  assembly  a  domestic  air,  three  or 
four  tables  were  disposed  over  the  room  with  groups  of  women 
at  work  around  them.  But  it  would  not  do.  The  assembly 
was  not  a  family  circle :  it  was  a  meeting,  though  a  meeting 
of  people  agreed  in  conviction,  and  well  acquainted  with  each 
other.  In  the  very  unanimity  of  opinion  and  sentiment  there 
was  an  undomestic  ring.  In  the  same  manner  the  repasts  in  the 
common  hall  lack  the  character  of  a  family  meal.  Dinner  is 
a  table  d'hote,  at  which  those  who  partake  of  it  do  not  even  sit 
down  together,  but  separately,  each  when  he  pleases,  between 
certain  hours,  just  as  they  do  in  a  hotel.  And  this  was  the 
general  impression  made  on  the  writer  by  what  he  saw  of 
Oneida.  lie  felt  that  all  the  time  he  was  in  a  great  hotel,  an 
hotel  where  people  boarded  all  the  year  rouud,  and  were  on 


380  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

friendly  terms  with  each  other,  but  still  an  hotel  and  not  a 
home.  Mention  has  been  already  made  of  the  departure  from 
the  original  institution  of  family  criticism,  and  the  delegation 
to  a  committee  of  the  function,  once  performed  by  the  Commu- 
nity at  large.  This  is  obvioiisly  a  symptom  of  disintegra- 
tion, while  the  necessity  under  which  the  committee  finds 
itself  of  summoning  special  witnesses  proves  that  within  the 
great  circle  of  the  Community  inner  social  circles  are  formed. 
In  fact,  without  some  miraculous  enlargement  of  the  range  of 
human  affections,  it  is  absurd  to  talk  of  forming  a  family  of 
two  hiindred  people.  They  may  be  under  the  same  paternal 
despotism,  but  they  can  be  a  family  in  no  other  sense  of  the 
term.  To  preserve  the  domestic  unity  of  the  three  establish- 
ments, Oneida,  Willow  Place,  and  Wallingford,  will  be  still 
more  beyond  human  power. 

The  children,  as  has  been  already  said,  are  regarded  as 
children  of  the  Community,  and  are  brought  up  together  on 
that  footing.  The  mother  is  allowed  to  take  part  in  nursing 
them  as  much  as  she  pleases,  but  she  is  not  required  to  do 
more.  Undeniably  they  are  a  fine,  healthy-looking,  merry 
set  of  infants.  But  we  need  not  jump  from  this  fact  to  a 
conclusion  in  favour  of  Scientific  Propagation,  and  all  its 
repulsive  incidents.  The  Oneida  children  are  reared  under 
conditions  of  exceptional  advantage,  which  could  not  fail  to 
secure  health  to  the  offspring  of  any  but  positively  diseased 
parents,  whose  union  no  coarse  intervention  of  anthropological 
science  is  needed  to  forbid.  The  nurseries,  with  everything 
about  them,  are  beautiful.  Large  play-rooms  are  provided 
for  exercise  in  winter.  The  nurses  are  not  hirelings,  but 
members  of  the  Community  who  voluntarily  undertake  the 
office.  Every  precaution  is  taken  against  the  danger  of  infec- 
tion. A  simple  and  wholesome  dietary  is  enforced,  and  no 
mother  or  grandmother  is  permitted  to  ruin  digestion  and 
temper  by  administering  first  a  poison  from  the  confectioner's 
and  then  another  poison  from  the  druggist's.  Lessons  may 
perhaps  be  learned  from  the  nurseries  of  the  Oneida  Com- 
munity, but  not  the  lesson  for  which  the  Community  cites 


APPENDIX.  381 

a  long  roll  of  the  hierophants  of  science,  that  it  is  good  in 
human  unions  to  disregard,  or  treat  as  secondary,  the  selec- 
tive instinct  of  affection,  and  to  breed  human  beings  as  we 
breed  horses  or  swine. 

It  is  by  no  means  surprising  that  the  Perfectionists  should 
not  be  anxious  to  make  proselytes  to  tlie  possession  of  the 
Oneida  estate,  and  the  three  flourishing  factories  upon  it, 
any  more  than  the  Ilappites  are  anxious  to  make  ])roselytes  to 
their  millions.  We  read  in  the  Circular,  under  the  head  of 
Admissions : 

"  These  Communities  are  constantly  receiving  applications  for  admission 
which  they  have  to  reject.  It  is  dilficult  to  state  in  any  brief  way  all  their 
reasons  for  thus  limiting  their  numbers  ;  but  some  of  them  are  these : 
1.  The  parent  Community  at  Oneida  is  full.  Its  buildings  are  adapted 
to  a  certain  number,  and  it  wants  no  more.  2.  The  Branch-Communi- 
ties, though  they  have  not  attained  the  normal  size,  have  as  many  mem- 
bei's  as  they  can  well  accommodate,  and  must  grow  in  numbers  only  as 
they  grow  in  capital  and  buildings.  3.  The  kind  of  men  and  women  who 
are  likely  to  make  the  Communities  grow,  spiritually  and  JluauciaUy,  are 
scarce,  and  have  to  be  sifted  out  slowly  and  cautiously.  It  should  be  dis- 
tinctly understood  that  these  Communities  are  not  asylums  for  pleasure- 
seekers  or  persons  who  merely  want  a  home  and  a  living.  They  will 
receive  only  those  who  are  very  much  in  earnest  in  religion.  They  have 
already  done  their  full  share  of  labor  in  criticising  and  working  over  raw 
recruits,  and  intend  hereafter  to  devote  themselves  to  other  jobs  (a  plenty 
of  which  they  have  on  hand),  receiving  only  such  members  as  seem 
likely  to  help  and  not  hinder  their  work.  As  candidates  for  Communism 
multiply,  it  is  obvious  that  they  cannot  all  settle  at  Oneida  and  Walling- 
f ord.  Other  Communities  must  be  formed  :  and  the  best  way  for  earnest 
disciples  generally  is  to  work  and  wait,  till  the  Spirit  of  Pentecost  shall 
come  on  their  neighbors,  and  give  them  communities  right  where  they 
are." 

It  appears  that  from  a  pretty  early  period  regard  was  had 
to  "financial"  as  well  as  to  "spiritual"  qualifications;  for  the 
amount  of  property  brought  in  by  members  of  the  Community 
and  its  brandies  up  to  1857  was,  according  to  the  Handbook, 
$107,000.  This,  and  cheapness  of  living  in  common,  must  of 
course  be  taken  into  account  in  estimating  the  commercial 
success  of  the  Community,  and  tracing  it  to  its  real  source^ 


382  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

Thcat  the  Oneida  Community,  or  any  one  of  the  group  to 
which  it  belongs,  has  solved  any  great  problem  for  humanity, 
or  even  tried  any  experiment  of  general  interest,  the  writer 
sees  not  the  slightest  ground  for  believing.  Of  course  noth- 
ing which  involves  celibacy  can  be  extended  beyond  a  few 
circles  of  fanatics,  such  as  the  monks  in  former  days,  or  the 
Shakers  in  ours;  and  the  abolition  of  the  family  is,  except 
within  the  same  narrow  limit,  equally  impracticable  as  well 
as  utterly  revolting.  In  addition  to  which,  such  a  mode  of 
living  as  that  adopted  by  the  Oneida  Community,  and  essential 
to  the  application  of  their  principles,  is  wholly  at  variance 
with  the  general  conditions  of  industrial  life.  Close  to  the 
mansion  of  the  Community  runs  a  railroad  on  which  they  ship 
their  goods,  and  which  is  necessary  to  their  subsistence. 
Can  they  imagine  it  possible  to  organise  the  life  of  the  people 
employed  upon  that  railroad  after  the  model  of  their  own? 
They  send  some  of  their  goods  across  the  ocean.  Do  they 
think  that  the  sailors  who  carry  these  goods  can  be  gathered 
with  their  families  into  a  communistic  home? 

There  is  at  Brooklin,  on  the  Southern  shore  of  Lake  Erie, 
another  community  which  has  attracted  notice  from  number- 
ing among  its  members  an  Englishman  of  some  distinction, 
Mr.  Laurence  Oliphant.  About  this  association  little  is 
known,  1  even  among  the  people  at  Oneida,  whose  curiosity  it 
naturally  excites.  But  it  appears  to  be  not  a  counterpart  of 
Oneida,  but  a  small  group  of  householders  living  under  the 
presidency  of  Mr.  Harris,  the  prophet  of  a  religion  akin  to 
Swedenborgianism,  and  entrusting  their  property  to  his  hands. 
So  long  as  that  property  holds  out,  the  Community  may  of 
course  continue  to  exist  without  impugning  any  of  the  received 
laws  of  political  economy,  or  introducing  any  new  principle 
into  the  world. 

It  is  true  that  there  may  be  points  worthy  the  attention  of 
the  social  pathologist  in  connection  with  the  tendencies  which 

1  This,  it  will  be  borne  in  mind,  was  written  in  1874.  The  my.stery  of 
the  Lake  Erie  Community  has  been  since  revealed.  The  revelation  con- 
firms what  is  said  in  the  text. 


APPENDIX.  383 

have  called  these  strange  structures  into  existence,  though  the 
subject  is  too  extensive  to  be  discussed  at  the  close  of  this 
paper.  Among  the  impelling  motives  have  evidently  been  the 
discomfort  and  the  waste  attendant  on  the  domestic  economy 
of  our  separate  households,  which  advancing  civilisation  will 
surely  teach  us  in  some  degree  to  mitigate.  Another  motive 
is  the  desire  of  escaping  from  the  gloom  and  dulness  of  exces- 
sive family  isolation  into  more  mixed  and  more  cheerful 
society.  The  family  is  the  centre  of  happiness;  but  at  the 
same  time  a  man  and  woman  can  rarely  be  so  gifted  as,  after 
the  honeymoon,  to  be  absolutely  sufficient  for  each  other. 
The  writer  of  this  paper  was  once  the  guest  of  a  friend  resid- 
ing in  the  neighbourhood  of  London,  and  in  the  middle  of  a 
district  of  suburban  villas.  On  his  noticing  the  number  of 
houses  bespeaking  opulence  which  was  visible  on  every  side, 
his  friend  replied,  "  Yes,  and  you  would  suppose  there  was  a 
great  deal  of  good  society  here.  There  is  absolutely  none. 
It  is  impossible  to  bring  these  families  together  for  any  social 
purpose  whatever.  The  man  goes  up  to  his  place  of  business 
in  London  every  morning;  stays  there  till  he  returns  home 
for  dinner,  then  reads  the  newspaper  the  rest  of  the  evening. 
For  two  months  in  each  summer  the  family  goes  to  a  water- 
ing-place where  it  lives  in  a  private  lodging  by  itself.  That 
is  the  whole  existence  of  these  people."  A  dreary  and  a  trun- 
cated sort  of  existence  it  is.  Unfortunately  it  is  not  con- 
fined to  the  suburbs  of  London.  We  need  in  Canada,  as  much 
as  anywhere,  to  learn  the  art  of  preserving  the  happiness 
of  the  family  by  supplementing  it  with  the  enjoyments  of 
more  general  society  in  a  cheap  and  reasonable  way. 

Communism,  in  a  certain  sense,  was  no  doubt  the  original 
condition  of  mankind;  at  least  tribal  not  private  ownership 
of  land  is  the  rule  of  primeval  history:  and  probably  this 
union  of  interest  served  an  important  purpose  in  the  founda- 
tion of  primitive  States.  A  temporary  communism  has  also 
played  a  memorable  part  in  the  commencement  of  great  reli- 
gious or  social  enterprises.  The  first  preachers  of  Christianity 
for  a  time  had  all  things  in  common,  and  so  had  the  founders 


384  QUESTIONS   OF   THE   DAY. 

of  New  England.  Monachism  was  also  communistic,  and 
partly  in  virtue  of  its  detachment  from  the  ties  and  cares  of 
property,  it  was  able  to  perform  a  mighty  work  in  the  conver- 
sion of  the  Barbarians,  and  the  foundation  of  Christian  civi- 
lisation. Besides  these  limited  instances,  extensive  though 
vague  manifestations  of  the  communistic  sentiment  have  gen- 
erally attended  the  great  crises  of  history,  such  as  the  Re- 
formation, and  the  English  and  French  Ee volutions.  It  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  such  yearnings  of  humanity,  though 
premature  and  abortive,  are  without  any  significance.  "  Pro- 
perty has  its  duties  as  well  as  its  rights,"  is  a  sentiment  the 
distinct  expression  of  which  is  comparatively  of  recent  date. 
It  may  perhaps  gain  force  and  ascendancy  till,  in  the  course 
of  ages,  the  right  of  property  is  by  a  spontaneous  process 
virtually  merged  in  social  duty.  The  saying  of  the  Greek 
dramatist,  as  to  the  Omnipotence  of  time,  has  acquired  new 
meaning  from  the  late  revelations  of  science  and  historical 
philosophy.  But  the  attempts  of  American  Socialists  and  Com- 
munists at  once  to  transmute  humanity  by  founding  Utopias, 
have  all  come  to  nothing.  For  the  present,  the  only  seat  of 
communism,  and  the  proper  sphere  of  the  communistic  sen- 
timent, is  the  family,  if  the  Woman's  Right  party  will  only 
have  the  wisdom  to  let  it  alone. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


THE  UNITED  STATES. 

An  Outline  of  Political  History,   1492=1871. 

By  GOLDWIN  SMITH,   D.C.L. 
Third  Edition.    With  Map.    Crown  8vo,  $2.00. 


"His  survey  of  eventc  iS  luminous,  his  estimate  of  character  is  singularly  keen  and  just, 
and  his  style  is  at  once  incisive,  dignified,  and  scholarly.  .  .  .  No  one  who  takes  up  Mr. 
Goldwin  Smith's  volume  will  readily  lay  it  down  before  he  has  finished  it;  no  one  will  lay  i/ 
down  without  acknowledging  the  rare  gifts  of  the  writer." —  The  Times. 

"  Is  a  literary  masterpiece,  as  readable  as  a  novel,  remarkable  for  its  compression  without 
dryness,  and  its  brilliancy  without  any  rhetorical  effort  or  display.  What  American  could, 
with  so  broad  a  grasp  and  so  perfect  a  style,  have  rehearsed  our  political  history  from  Colum- 
bus to  Grant  in  300  duodecimo  pages  of  open  type,  or  would  have  manifested  greater  candor 
in  his  judgment  of  men  and  events  in  a  period  of  four  centuries?  It  is  enough  to  say  that  no 
one  before  Mr.  Smith  has  attempted  the  feat,  and  that  he  has  the  field  to  himself." —  The 
Nation. 

"  It  is  a  marvel  of  condensation  and  lucidity.  In  no  other  book  is  the  same  field  covered 
so  succinctly  and  so  well.  Of  the  five  chapters,  the  first  deals  with  the  Colonial  epoch,  the 
second  with  the  Revolutionary  period,  the  third  and  fourth  review  the  history  of  the  Federal 
Government  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  and  the  fifth  depicts  the  era  of  rupture  and 
reconstruction.  We  have  marked  certain  passages  for  extract,  but  the  truth  is  that  almost 
every  page  is  enriched  with  striking  comments  that  cause  the  reader  to  carefully  reconsider, 
if  not  to  change,  his  views  of  historical  persons  and  events."  —  IVe^v  York  Situ. 

"  To  say  that  nothing  comparable  with  this  most  instructive  and  enchanting  volume  has 
hitherto  come  from  Professor  Smith's  pen,  would  perhaps  be  only  anticipating  the  judgment 
of  its  readers." —  Toronto  Mail. 

"  As  a  whole,  has  a  comprehensiveness  of  view  and  a  ready  grasp  of  leading  tendencies, 
that  should  make  it  particularly  useful  to  the  busy  man  who  desires  a  rapid  survey  of  Ameri- 
can political  history.  By  deliberately  neglecting  details,  Professor  .Smith  has  been  able  to 
fasten  the  attention  upon  salient  points,  and  to  concentrate  interest  around  the  career  of  the 
great  leaders  in  our  political  development."  —  Boston  Beacon. 

"  No  pen  has  ever  been  more  eloquent  than  his  in  setting  forth  the  merits  of  Washington, 
and  Hamilton,  and  Webster,  and  Lincoln,  and  others  of  America's  great  citizens.  The  chap- 
ters on  'Democracy  and  Slavery'  and  'Rupture  and  Reconstruction'  deserve  thoughtful 
perusal  by  every  American,  North  and  South."  —  Public  Opinion. 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY, 

66    FIFTH   AVENUE,  NEVv^  YORK. 


WORKS   BY   PROFESSOR  GOLDWIN   SMITH. 


Just  Published. 

ESSAYS  ON  QUESTIONS  OF  THE  DAY: 

POLITICAL    AND    SOCIAL. 
12mo,  cloth,  $2.25. 


CANADA  AND  THE  CANADIAN  QUESTION. 

With  Map.     Demy  8vo,  cloth,  $2.00. 


"This  is  a  timely  book,  but  it  is  something  more.  ...  It  is  as  valuable  for 
its  discriminating  comments  upon  contemporary  social  life  in  Canada,  as  for 
its  brilliant  review  of  Canada's  political  history,  and  its  convincing  arguments 
in  favor  of  her  commercial  union  with  the  United  States.  .  .  .  Mr.  Smith  is  a 
wonderfully  acute  critic."  —  Christian  Union. 

"  These  questions  —  for,  as  will  be  seen,  there  are  many  comprised  under 
one  head  —  are  all  treated  in  Professor  Smith's  latest  volume  with  the  clear- 
ness and  force  which  belong  to  all  his  writings."  —  Critic. 

"The  book  is  admirably  concise  in  method,  often  epigrammatic  in  the 
sweeping  generalizations.  The  method  is  modern,  moreover,  in  that  it  takes 
account  of  social  forms  and  prejudices,  of  popular  thought,  in  short,  as  well  as 
of  the  political  plans  of  the  few  so  called  leaders  of  men."  —  Hamlin  Garland, 
in  The  Arena. 

"  If  there  is  any  man  on  this  continent  who  is  thoroughly  competent  to 
present  'Canada  and  the  Canadian  Question,'  Goldvvin  Smith  is  he;  and  the 
volume  in  which  he  has  done  so  is  sure  of  a  hearty  welcome."  — Detroit  Free 
Press. 

THREE  ENGLISH  STATESMEN. 

A  Course  of  Lectures  on  the  Political  History  of 

England. 
12mo,  $1.50. 

Contents.  —  Pym;  Cromwell;  Pitt. 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY, 

66   FIFTH   AVENUE,  NEW   YORK. 


WORKS   BY   PROFESSOR   GOLDWIN   SMITH. 


THE  CONDUCT  OF  ENGLAND  TO  IRELAND. 

AN   ADDRESS. 

8vo,  paper,  15  cents. 


A  TRIP  TO  ENGLAND. 

New  and  Revised  Edition. 

18mo,  cloth,  gilt  top,  75  cents. 

"  It  is  safe  to  say  that  so  much  in  so  little  can  hardly  be  found  elsewhere,  concerning 
England  as  it  appears  to-day."  —  Philadelphia  Evening  Telegraph. 

"Mr.  Goldwin  Smith's  little  book,  although  intended  apparently  for  the  Canadian  reader, 
is  just  as  valuable  to  the  American.  Its  idea  is  excellent:  a  profound  historical  scholar,  who 
has  also  an  admirable  gift  for  communicating  knowledge  to  others,  offering  to  the  reader  about 
to  visit  England  his  services  as  a  companion  and  critic.  .  .  .  This  little  book  is,  as  a  whole, 
full  of  instruction  and  amusement,  and  is  admirably  written."  —  N.  Y.  Times. 

"  A  delightful  little  work,  telling  in  a  most  charming,  rambling,  yet  systematic  way,  what 
is  to  be  seen  of  interest  in  England."  —  Chicago  Times. 

"  So  delightful  a  cicerone  as  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith  proves  himself  in  'A  Trip  to  England' 
does  not  often  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  non-personally  conducted.  .  .  .  Meissonier-like  in  its 
diminutiveness,  but  also  Meissonier-like  in  its  mastery." —  Critic. 

"  Americans  and  Canadians  alike  will  find  pleasure  and  instruction  in  Professor  Goldwin 
Smith's  brilliant  sketch  of  the  development  of  civilization  in  England,  and  the  marks  it  has 
left  in  architectural  and  other  monuments.  Properly  regarded,  the  book  is  in  fact  a  history  of 
English  social  transformations  outlined  in  conformity  with  the  best  knowledge  on  the  sub- 
ject."—  Boston  Beacon. 

"  In  '  A  Trip  to  England,'  Professor  Goldwin  Smith  has  set  down  entertainingly  most  of 
the  facts  which  are  chiefly  interesting  and  valuable  to  the  inexperienced  tourist,  and  with 
many  wise  and  stimulating  comments.  He  has  avoided  the  ordinary  guide-book  manner, 
naturally,  and  has  written  a  series  of  comprehensive  and  very  readable  sketches."  —  Congre- 
gationalist. 


THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY, 

66    FIFTH   AVENUE,  NEW  YORK. 


WORKS   BY  PROFESSOR  GOLDWIN   SMITH. 


Just  Published. 

SPECIMENS  OF  GREEK  TRAGEDY. 

2  vols.,  16mo,  buckram,  gilt  top,  $1.25  each. 
Vol.  I.,  ^scHYLUS  and  Sophocles;    Vol.   II.,  Euripides. 


BAY  LEAVES. 

Translations  from  the  Latin  Poets. 

16mo,  buckram,  gilt  top,  $1.25. 


"  Excellently  the  translator  has  preserved  the  spirit  of  the  epicureanism  of 
Lucretius,  the  piquant  moral  irresponsibility  of  Catullus,  the  Johnsonian  com- 
placency of  Tibullus,  the  occasional  tenderness  of  the  stilted  Propertius,  and 
the  Queen  Anne  wit  of  Ovid.  Seneca,  Lucan,  Martial,  and  Claudian  are  also 
well  translated.  In  short,  the  volume  is  one  of  uncommon  merit  in  its  field, 
and  will  give  great  pleasure  to  all  lovers  of  classic  literature."  —  Neiu  York 
Times. 

"  It  has  been  given  to  but  few  to  approach,  and  to  none  in  our  estimation 
to  surpass,  the  delicate  perception  and  the  exquisite  grace  with  which  Profes- 
sor Goldvvin  Smith  has  served  up  this  glorious  classic  feast  with  choicest  Eng- 
lish and  in  faultless  style."  —  I'ht  Week. 

"  The  choice  of  material  indicates  a  cathoHc  taste,  and  also  calls  for  a  good 
deal  of  versatility,  since  the  talent  for  putting  into  English  the  stately  periods 
of  Lucretius  is  one  thing,  and  that  of  giving  a  fair  equivalent  for  a  lyric  of 
Catullus  is  quite  another;  but  Professor  Smith  has  succeeded  admirably  in 
both." —  The  Beacon. 

Specimens  of  Greek  Tragedy,  2  vols.,  and  Bay  Leaves,  i  vol.,  together, 

3  vols,  in  box,  ^3.75. 


OXFORD  AND  HER  COLLEGES. 

A  View  from  the  Radcliffe  Library. 

18mo,  gilt  top,  uniform  with  "  A  Trip  to  England."     75  cents. 


THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY, 

66   FIFTH   AVENUE,  NEW   YORK. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBR{|Rj^,.[,^,|jjy,|^^^^ 

AA      000  291  293    9 


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